Today we're going to talk about

something that is absolutely

fascinating. Does someone with multiple

personalities share one soul? And I'm

going to go ahead and say that the

answer is yes, they do share a soul. So

today we're going to be talking about

what the soul is. Not from a religious

or faith-based sense, but it's crazy,

but psychoanalysts and psychiatrists,

psychologists have been exploring,

philosophers have been exploring what

the nature of the soul is for at least a

hundred if not more years. And the

fascinating thing is there's actually

consensus from the psychoanalytic and

psychiatric community about what the

soul is. The other thing that we have to

understand in order to answer this

question is we have to understand the

fundamentals of depersonalization,

derealization, dissociation in multiple

personalities. And once we understand

what is going on with people with

multiple personalities and we try to

arrive at some kind of consensus of what

the soul is, that's how we're going to

get to our answer. So we're going to

start with the basic question, does a

soul really exist? And here's what's

really fascinating. If you look at the

psychoanalytic tradition, if you look at

spiritual traditions from Christianity,

if you look at the yogi's perspective on

what the soul is, they actually all

describe something very similar. Right?

So when there's consensus between

multiple different people who are

investigating things, that makes me lean

into that being more correct. So, we're

going to start with this exploration of

of a guy named William James who wrote

this book called The Varieties of

Religious Experience. And this was a

book that I read about 20 years ago when

I was first when I first started doing

uh neuroscience research at Harvard. It

was something that my uh PI a

neuroscientist uh recommended to me

because I was interested in

spirituality. So, William James I think

is more of a philosopher. I don't know

exactly what his training is but he

basically like talked about the

varieties of religious experience and he

explored things like psychosis and he

said okay people who are psychotic are

like a little bit divorced from reality

and then there are these people who will

have like these spiritual episodes those

people are also divorced from real from

reality but there seems to be a

difference between these two things okay

what William James was exploring was

mystical states of consciousness and

then he's not the only on. So beyond who

I think is a psychoanalyst spoke of the

ineffable reality of o or the godhead is

the ultimate source of transformation in

psychotherapy. Christopher Bolas

acknowledges a mysterious intelligence

that moves through the mind and says

that if there is a god this is where it

lives. And so Jung talked about this as

as well. He sort of noticed that okay

there's the ego which is like the mind

that I am aware of right my personality

with thoughts and feelings and memories

and stuff like that and then he

describes something called the ground of

the soul which is the self which is

separate from the mind and he says when

people have experienced the self they'll

never forget it so all these people

basically agree that there's something

else beyond our ordinary experience so

part of what I love about being a doctor

is in medicine we learn how something

works when it breaks right so if I break

a leg then I have difficulty walking

that's how I learn that the leg is

what's responsible for walking so my

background is more in neuroscience and

psychiatry so that's where we look at

damaging different parts of the brain so

if I have damage to Broca's area in a

stroke I'll have difficulty speaking if

I have damage to Wernern's uh area in

the brain from a stroke I'll also have

difficulty speaking but in a different

way. So what's really fascinating is

these severe trauma disorders are

actually damage to our connection with

the soul. Okay, that's what I sort of

believe and we're going to lay it out.

So let's start by looking at

dissociative identity disorder,

depersonalization disorder, and

derealization disorder. Okay, so in

dissociative personality disorder, which

is basically multiple personalities,

what happens is someone's mind has

multiple people inside it. So you can

sort of think about this like a Pokemon

trainer with Pokemon, right? So there's

like Charizard, which is my fire

Pokemon. This alter or this personality

comes out in certain situations. And

then I have my Bulbasaur, which is like

in other situations, this personality

comes out. So with a healthy person, we

all have aspects of our personality, but

they're all connected, right? So there's

there's there's Dr. K, right? to give

you my example. There's Dr. K, and then

there's Alo, and then there's Daddy,

which is what my kids call me, not my

wife. Right? So, I have lots of

different things. And then I'm I'm a son

to my mom, right? So, I have all these

different parts, but they're all

connected. In multiple personality

disorder, these things are disconnected.

Individuals with dissociative identity

disorder may report the feeling that

they have suddenly become depersonalized

observers of their own speech or actions

which they may feel powerless to stop.

In some cases, voices are experienced as

multiple perplexing independent thought

streams over which the individual

experiences no control. Strong emotions,

impulses, and even speech or other

actions may suddenly emerge without a

sense of personal ownership or control,

sense of agency. Alterations in sense of

self and loss of personal agency may be

accompanied by a feeling that these

attitudes, emotions, and behaviors, even

one's body, are not mine or not under my

control. These people also tend to have

amnesia. So when one alter is

functioning, it may do certain things

that the other altar is not aware of.

But basically, these people have

multiple personalities. They sometimes

feel really disconnected from them. This

is a key theme that is also found in

depersonalization and derealization

disorder. The individual may feel

detached from his or her entire being. I

am no one and I have no self. He or she

may also feel subjectively detached from

aspects of the self including feelings

which includes hypoality.

I know I have feelings but I don't feel

them. Head filled with cotton. Whole

body or body parts or sensations. Touch.

Propriception which is where my body is

in space. So if you hold your arm up,

that's appropriate reception. Hunger,

thirst, libido. There may also be a

diminished sense of agency, feeling

robotic, like an automaton, lacking

control of one's speech or movements. So

in depersonalization disorder, people

feel like there's no self in here,

right? So I am a like I'm sort of aware

like watching a movie that my body has

these sensations. I am aware that my

mind has these feelings, but I don't

actually feel them. It's sort of like

I'm an empty shell and there's nothing

on the inside. So derealization disorder

is a little bit different. Derealization

is characterized by a feeling of

unreality or detachment from or

unfamiliar unfamiliarity with the world

be it individuals in objects or all

surroundings. The individual may feel as

if he or she were in a fog dream or

bubble or as if there were a veil or a

glass wall between the individual and

the world around. images appear

two-dimensional or flat. So

depersonalization and derealization are

sort of two sides of the same coin,

which is when I'm depersonalized, the

rest of the world exists, but I'm

disconnected from it. There's nothing

like here that is feeling it, really

experiencing it. Derealization is when

I'm stuck in a bubble. So the me in here

exists, but it can't connect to the

outside world. The outside world is a

fog. Everything appears flat and

colorless and not lielike. So, it's kind

of like I'm insconed in here, but the

vibrancy of the world is not something

that I can connect with. [music] Hey

y'all, if you're interested in applying

some of the principles that we share to

actually create change in your life,

check out Dr. K's guide to mental

health. So, this is a guide that

explores this process. How does

experience shape us [music] as human

beings? Trauma is all about walling off

or suppressing [music] things that are

overwhelming. They cannot control their

emotions, so their emotions control

them.

>> So check out the link in the bio and

start your journey today. In my

experience, depersonalization and

derealization are sort of like less

severe forms of dissociative identity

disorder or multiple personalities, but

they're all along the same continuum. So

if we look at what a person is,

we have all these aspects of self. Okay?

So let's say there's Dr. K over here

there's dad over here there's husband

lover

right there's son there's gamer

and then there is wannabe monk

okay and each of these personalities

each of these aspects of my personality

are all joined by a continuous

experience in here in each of these

instances when I'm working in the

emergency room as a doctor actually. So,

let's do this. There's Dr. Kenoja, too.

I like that more. So, there's Dr. K

who's an internet personality and then

there's Dr. Kenoja who you if you go to

an emergency room with an overdose may

come and evaluate you to see if you need

to be hospitalized. Right? So, we have

all of these aspects of our personality

and they're all sort of joined together.

So, there's no amnesia between these

things. Dr. Kenoja remembers what Dr. K

said yesterday on YouTube. Dad remembers

what son was saying the other day. So

all of these aspects of my personality

are connected. And then there's Dr.

Kenoja, right? So Dr. Kenoja is the

doctor who works in emergency rooms, is

licensed to practice medicine, sees

patients. So each of these are aspects

of my personality. Okay? There's no

amnesia between them. They're all

connected by this central force. And in

the yogic philosophy um in in yogic

contemplative spiritual traditions we

sort of say that okay the soul is the

thing that experiences all of the

different aspects of your your life

right so the mind has Dr. K and Dr.

Kenoja husband and son and all those

people behave differently but I am the

one the me is the one that experiences

all of them right you guys aren't Dr.

Kenoja you're not Dr. Okay, you're not

married to my wife. You're not father to

my children. And in the same way, you

have many aspects. There's you at work,

there's you at school, maybe you're a

parent, maybe you're a child, maybe

you're you have a nemesis, maybe you're

a mentor, maybe you're a mentee. So, you

have all of these different aspects of

your personality that are all joined

because you're the one who lives them.

Okay? So, the yogis basically say this

central witnessing, experiencing thing

is what the soul is. So then there's

another kind of like normal situation

here which is that if you look at the

aspects of your life okay even though

the mechanical aspects of your life may

be the same. Every day I go to work in

the emergency room I always see patients

but sometimes there is a zest for life.

Sometimes there is a joy and there is a

chemistry and there is an excitement.

Sometimes I feel alive in the emergency

room and sometimes I feel burnt out in

the emergency room. Does that kind of

make sense? If you look at the

experiences of your life, sometimes

there is a zestness to them. There's a

feeling of aliveness and sometimes it

feels more mechanical. So most of us

will like alternate in this kind of

general area where there's like we feel

more alive at time, we feel less alive

at time. And what's happening in today's

society is that we are becoming less

alive and like more dopamineergic. Food

manufacturers are figuring out how to

activate our tongue to increase the

sense of taste. All of these tech

platforms and pornography and all this

kind of stuff are sort of giving us

these artificial highs. But no amount of

like scrolling great shorts makes you

like feel alive and feel that zest. And

that zest isn't even associated with

pleasure, right? So, a couple years ago,

I had the absolute privilege of going to

the Bavarian Alps for vacation. And

while I was in the Alps, I I jumped into

this ice icy cold mountain stream. It is

a horribly unpleasant experience, but it

is absolutely invigorating and it makes

you feel alive. So, what happens when we

traumatize someone? We're going to talk

about a medical principle called an

abscess. Okay? So when we have a body

that is healthy, we sometimes get an

infection and then what what our body

does in order to protect us from that

infection, it walls off this infection.

So there's a bundle of infection inside

that has been walled off to protect the

rest of us. When most of us experience

trauma, this is how we experience it. We

take there's some negative aspect of our

experience that we wall off and we bury

in our unconscious. This is why we get

triggered, right? So, what happens is

once I have a traumatic experience,

let's say my partner cheats on me, I

sort of move on. A year later, I'm able

to do my job. I'm able to live my life.

But if if I'm dating someone and there's

like an inkling that they're cheating,

this abscess which has been walled off

will kind of rupture and these thoughts

will reemerge in my mind. Okay. So, for

healthy people, we have these traumas

that we kind of wall off. Ideally, we

process them. We talk about all that

kind of stuff in Dr. K's Guide to

Trauma, right? How to process trauma.

But when the trauma is incredibly

severe, okay? So, when someone like a

child has something really terrible

happen to them, they don't know how to

handle it. And this is not a situation

where I'm mostly healthy. I'm and I'm a

well-formed person. This is a situation

where the trauma is so overwhelming that

it suses my mind. And when the trauma is

so overwhelming, our mind takes a

different approach. Instead of walling

off the damage, it walls off the good

part. Right? So this is a situation

where, you know, the walls are overrun.

We're defending. This is the siege of

Helm's Deep and the walls have been

over. So at the beginning, we're trying

to hold the line, right? And then the

walls get overrun by orcs. And then what

we do is all the remaining people who

are alive retreat inside into the keep

and we wall off this final keep for our

last stand. This is what happens in

severe trauma. The spark, the joy, the

life within us has to be protected from

the overwhelming tsunami of negativity.

Early relational trauma results from the

fact that we are often given more to

experience in this life than we can bear

consciously. Later on, when our mind is

developed, we can handle more trauma.

But when this happens to a child, which

by the way is a huge risk factor for

dissociative identity disorder, multiple

personalities, I've never seen a case of

someone developing multiple

personalities when they're 40 years old.

Okay. The young child who is abused,

violated, or seriously neglected by a

caretaking adult is overwhelmed by

intolerable affects, that means

intolerable emotion that are impossible

for it to metabolize, much less

understand or even think about. A shock

to the psychosmatic unity of the

personality threatens to shatter the

child to its very core. Threatens to

extinguish that vital spark of the

person so crucial for the experience of

aliveness and so central to that later

experience of feeling real. Such a

shattering of the childhood psyche would

be would be an unimaginable catastrophe,

a soul murder as one investigator called

it. Right. So when the torancets are too

big for the child to ha handle this

vital spark this soul this aliveness

deep within the child is threatened to

be completely overwhelmed. So what it

does is walls that off right but

remember this is vitaleness. This is

aliveness. This is the joy of childhood

which our psyche tries to maintain and

preserve at all costs because this is

our this is the spark of life. This is

the last thing that ultimately when this

thing dies, our soul is dead. And that

is what the mind doesn't want to happen

at any cost. Fortunately, this

shattering almost never happens, at

least not completely. Instead, a

lifesaving split occurs that we call

dissociation. Dissociation seals over

non-being, right? It protects us from

non-being. It prevents the annihilation

of the unit itself. So then when we're

walling this off, what happens on the

outside? The unbearable affect is

distributed to different parts of the

psyche or soma. These parts cease to

know about each other so that the

personality does not have to suffer the

unspeakable horror of trauma as a whole.

We could say that the psyche shatters

itself along inborn fault lines. So

remember these are the different aspects

of me. Okay? And we have this vital

aliveness that connects them all. So

when trauma is threatening to be

overwhelming and is going to overwhelm

all of this, what we actually do is we

wall off the aliveness. This is a bundle

of aliveness that we are then walling

off. And then what our mind does to

preserve oursel. First thing we're going

to do is wall this off. And once we wall

this off, something interesting happens.

These are no longer connected, right?

These segments here are now separated.

And then what the mind does in order to

protect itself is it takes all the

trauma and it sticks it into one person.

So when you work with multiple

personalities,

often times what you'll see is that

there is like one person who tanks all

the damage. You'll have one or two

altars that basically deal with all the

crap. So when when you're threatened,

there's a certain aggressive protective

altar that'll take over. It is not going

to bow down. when you start punishing

when when you know when a child is being

abused like physically or emotionally

the tank alter will kind of switch into

gear and it'll tank that damage and then

there's another altar over here which is

like the artist the tank alter protects

the artist altar from the damage and

this is what tends to trigger and we'll

get to sort of healing and and recovery

soon enough but this is sort of what the

goal of multiple person uh treating

people with dissociative identity

disorder is is we want to have them stop

switching right we want we want the

artists to be able to tank a little bit

of the damage and we want the tank altar

to be able to experience a little bit of

joy, right? So that we don't separate

out suffering and and pleasure. We want

to have everybody doing everything. But

this is basically what happens in the

psyche. But this creates a problem

because remember that that zest of life,

that feeling of aliveness, the childlike

joy, the experience of chemistry and

excitement. I remember my mom once went

to a a concert that she was pretty

excited about by this guy named Pundit

Jasraj. He's like a devotional singer

and my mom was sort of saying like you

know if I had stayed there 10 more

minutes if he had kept singing 10 more

minutes I would have like died and gone

to heaven. So she had this like really

rapturous experience through devotional

music. And so this is what the soul is

right when we feel like activated and

connected with our soul that's what

brings the zest in life. And so in order

to protect ourselves from severe trauma,

we wall off this childlike innocence.

These self-divisions have survival value

because they save a part of the child's

innocence and aliveness by splitting it

off from the rest of the personality,

preserving it in the unconscious. This

allows life to go on, albeit at a

terrible price, a loss of animation and

vitality that have always been

associated with and sold living. So

ironically, dissociative defenses save a

a vital core of the self while

simultaneously losing it or losing it

partially. They preser preserve the seed

by cutting it all off from the world at

least for a time. So this is the basic

problem with dissociation,

derealization, dissociative identity. We

have to preserve this childlike

innocence. We have to preserve this

zest. And in preserving it, in walling

it off, we actually disconnect it from

all of our aspects, all of our altars.

And this is exactly now if we go back to

the experience of derealization, the

experience of depersonalization. What

are the diagnostic criteria? The

diagnostic criteria is living without a

soul. The world feels flat. You are

trapped in here, but there's no

connection. The mind is what connects to

the outside world. Right? Dr. Dr. Kenoja

is the one who shows up in the emergency

room. Dr. K is the one who shows up on

YouTube, right? Daddy is the one who

tucks my kids in at night. And so the

mind, all of my sensory perceptions of

my kids and things like that, sensory

perceptions of what people are saying in

the emergency room, that's in the mind.

And so in depersonalization,

derealization, they still have those

sensory experiences. You can ask them,

hey, like, what does this taste like?

This tastes good. You know, this tastes

sweet. This this tastes chocolatey and

sweet and it has some tang from the

raspberries. Do you like it? I don't

know. Is it delicious? I can't tell. So

depersonalization and derealization are

on both sides of this coin, but the core

problem is the same that the soul has

been walled off. So the deliciousness

has been removed from life. And so the

goal is to do a couple of things. Okay.

So I I really like um Bessel Vanderulk's

book, The Body Keeps the Score. So he's

he's a you know a trauma he's a

psychiatrist, I think, who focuses on

trauma treatment. And as he's developed

his treatment center, they've

incorporated a lot of spiritual

practices. So when I work with with

people with trauma, there's like a lot

of stuff that has to be done. Okay. So

the basic thing that we want to do is

reconnect with the soul and keep the

altars from switching. So the the goal

of the therapy is is normally like each

of these personalities handles their own

thing. Okay? So you can kind of think

about this like a Pokemon trainer with

Pokemon once again. So, it's like when

I'm fighting a a water Pokemon, I'm

going to use Pikachu. When I'm fighting

a grass Pokemon, I'm going to use

Charizard, right? So, we a normal human

being has all these Pokemon, but we're

all unified by the Pokemon trainer. The

Pokemon are extensions of the Pokemon

trainer, and we will pinch, hit, we'll

summon certain Pokemon to deal with

certain issues, but the the Pokemon

trainer is always in control. So, what

happens when we have dissociative

identity disorder is we lose the Pokemon

trainer entirely. and the Pokémon are

just switching however they feel like.

So there is not a unifying sense of

order. Generally speaking, what

treatment looks like is that we want to

be able to not switch. So that means

that when when I have Charizard,

Charizard may come out when I have a

grass Pokemon, but the actual goal is

when I'm faced with a mo water Pokemon,

instead of switching to Pikachu, I want

to stay as Charizard, right? So when

when the tank altar shows up and someone

is expressing love and affection instead

of switching to the child alter we

actually want the tank altar to stay

there and once we have the altars not

switching then there is a sense of

continuity between them. That is what

healing looks like. So that's how

dissociative identity disorder

depersonalization derealization kind of

work. Okay. But we still haven't fully

answered the question of, you know,

whether they have one soul or not. But

make no mistake that like this is like

where Dr. K is stepping outside of some

of my expertise. Okay, we're going to

touch on philosophy and a couple of

other things. So there's this sense of

continuity between all the aspects of

our personality. In the Advant or like

yogic spiritual system, we have this

thing called the atman or the soul which

can't be described which Christian

Christian mystics will also talk about

but is that just a part of the mind or

is it something that is like not mental

right so is this is this just an

abstraction of the mind or is there a

real thing that exists outside of the

mind is the soul actually real and this

is where we're going to sort of depart

well-grounded science and I'm still

going to explore this because I think

it's absolutely fascinating because I

think there is actually something there

that is beyond the mind and I'm not the

only one. So the first thing is it's

it's really fascinating, but if you look

at people who are heavily traumatized,

there's a rupture between their internal

self, the soul, and their external

personality. That's why things feel

derealized. That's why things feel

depersonalized. But the interesting

thing is that for a normal person, their

soul is kind of intermingled with all of

their life, right? They have like a zest

for life. They have a joy of life. But

for the traumatized person, if it's all

packaged and sealed away, then one would

think that okay, if there's no soul in

the regular life, there's no zest,

there's no joy, there may be a

hyperconentrated soul over here, right?

So instead of it permeating out, it's

concentrated over here. And this is

what's really interesting is there is

absolutely a correlation between people

being heavily heavily traumatized and

their capacity for mystical experience.

So if we look at a lot of people who

have transformed their lives. So we can

talk about people like um you know

Victor Frankle who was in in the

concentration camps during the Holocaust

and he sort of had this deep spiritual

connection which then like transformed

him. So trauma transforms people who are

being destroyed into saints and into

prophets, right? And this is like a

really common theme. It's been a part of

my experience where I'm not a saint or a

prophet, but I was feeling terrible. I

didn't have really bad trauma, like not

in the way that we're talking about with

dissociative identity disorder, but I

can speak to how deep spiritual practice

can transform your sense of self. So

there's still a deeper question here of

what is that thing in the middle, right?

And a lot of people will say, okay, what

you're describing is the soul isn't

anything special. It's just some aspect

of the mind. It's some some aspect of

consciousness. It's a hallucination

created by the brain. There's nothing

really special about it. I don't really

think so, though. And I'm not the only

one. I think there is something special

about that that part of us. I don't

think it's a part of the mind. I think

it is a transcendent part of us that we

really do have something like a soul

that there is this whole realm of

existence that our brain is not capable

of perceiving. Okay? And like I said,

I'm not the only one. And this is

something that has been observed by

psychoan analysts and psychiatrists when

working with victims of trauma. And if

you have been hard hard hard

traumatized, there is a decent chance

that you have access to a level of

perception that normal people don't

have. Now, I know this sounds crazy,

right? Like though this doctor is like

he's like talking all this stuff. You

guys are special. But I'm not the only

one like so let's just take a look at

some of the what's been written. Okay,

so psychoanalytic work with some victims

of early trauma supports these mystical

musings in specific and dramatic ways.

Almost all the highly sensitive people

whose cases appear herein have had

mystical experiences. So people who are

traumatized

frequently have these hyperconentrated

spiritual experiences. So let's

understand this for a second. For people

who are well adapted, my soul is

connected to my personality. So there's

zest and joy in all the dimensions of or

some dimensions of life, some more than

others. But if I'm traumatized and my

soul has been sealed away and I exist in

a depersonalized, derealized state over

here where I'm mentally I'm functioning,

I have thoughts and feelings but I don't

really feel them. It would sort of

logically make sense that if there's no

soul over here and it's all packaged

over here, if we go over here, we will

have like a concentrated soulful

experience, which is interestingly

enough what we see if we look at things

historically, right? So you'll have

these people who will later on become

saints and prophets that go through a

very traumatic experience. I think a

well doumented well you know believable

version of this is Victor Frankle in the

Holocaust where he sort of has this like

perspective on spirituality and inner

peace and things like that that is

triggered by trauma. Even when we look

at like when I think about my life I'm

not I've never had dissociative identity

disorder but it was at my low point in

life when I was deeply depressed failing

at life that I went to India and

something about being addicted to video

games and like having an empty life that

had no zest but plenty of dopamine

concentrated a part of myself that then

I opened up in India through spiritual

experience and so if we follow this what

we sort of end up with this is this idea

that okay so there we're separated right

so there's concentrated soul over here,

empty life over here. And so they're

almost two worlds that exist. And for

most people, these things are

intermingled. So they just see it as one

world. So let's take a look at what what

uh this text shows. The true story of

their soul's dual destiny on this earth

as citizens of two realms. Ironically,

trauma survivors are in a unique

position to claim this larger vision

because they are often forced

prematurely into a non-ordinary reality,

a spiritual and often mentalized world

that helps them survive the unbearable

pain of their early affect

relationships. They become what James

Gratzstein calls orphans of the real,

but simultaneously they become avatars

of the ultra real. Now, what the hell

does that mean? I'm going to try to

explain it. So early on when we get

hyper traumatized like severely

traumatized, we cannot exist in this co

coexistent state. So what happens is

these people retreat into the soul. It's

the only place that can protect them

because the outside world is so

damaging. The mind is so damaging,

scary, dangerous that we have to retreat

into this place. And then they're

severed. But the really interesting

thing is that since there is this

separation,

they have this capacity for nonordinary

experience. They have this capacity for

access to the ultra real, some kind of

weird like transcendent reality. And and

this was something that like I connected

these dots in a really random way. So

when I was interviewing for residency,

okay, so I I went to MLAN hospital at at

this program called MGH McLean, which is

Harvard Medical School, arguably best

program in the country. And one of my

interviews was was with this awesome

person, Dr. Kaufman, who's a

neuroscientist who specializes

psychiatrist, does a lot of brain fMRI

research on and focuses on trauma. So we

had a like a super cool conversation for

like an hour about trauma and

spirituality and and what's going on

there. And then two years later, I was

in her class and she brought in a

patient who had experienced

dissociation, depersonalization,

derealization, right? So, she's trying

to teach us about this stuff we're

training to be psych psychiatrists. And

the really fascinating thing is I

started asking this person questions and

they were describing their experience

and I was like, "Oh, does it feel like

this? Does it feel like this? Does it

feel like this?" And they're like,

"Yeah, yeah, it feels like that. It

feels like that. It feels like that."

And there's this really weird connection

where like I was like, "Oh, I know

exactly what this person is is talking

about. I felt this but for them it was

really bad in some ways and for me it

was like really good. So there seems to

almost be like a positive and negative

veilance to these disconnected spiritual

experiences which is what William James

talks about right like it can end up as

psychosis it can end up as trauma or

there's an ego death or dissociative

experience in meditation right that's

like a key element that leads to

deactivation of the default mode network

healing and all this kind of stuff even

if you look at studies on psychedelics

the healing or therapeutic value of

psychedelics seems seems to correlate

with the degree of ego death that

someone experiences. This is a thing

where like it's really bizarre, but

people with trauma are like highly

sensitive and have access to this other

dimension of reality. So, we were

talking about the same thing. And so,

let's go back to the text. So, often

they report synchronous experiences that

defy rational understanding. And many of

them describe a blurring of the

boundaries between ordinary and

non-ordinary reality which allows them

uncanny access to an immaterial reality

that is inaccessible to better adapted

people. So here's what this means.

People with trauma have access to this

nonordinary reality that better adapted

people aren't even aware of. But then

this begs a really important question.

What is reality here? Because in in this

text, it's framed that there's an

ordinary reality and there's a

non-ordinary reality. That both of these

are still reality. Whereas the clear

counterargument is that actually these

people who are traumatized, there's just

one reality. And if you were mentally

ill, if you were broken, if you're

hallucinating from meditation, you're

not perceiving reality. That's like

literally a hallucination, Brad. Like

this is not a real thing. But when you

sit with these people, like I just don't

think that's true. Like my experiences

with this stuff have really led me to

believe that there is this non-ordinary

reality that just like the text says is

not perceivable by people who are better

adapted. Okay. Now, this is also where

like I'm not saying that this is true.

This is just when when my cookie

crumbles, having sat with people who are

traumatized and have these weird

spiritual experiences, I think they are

experiencing something that is real that

by virtue of the way that their their

soul has been hyperconentrated, they get

access to this thing. And I think for me

this makes sense that this is what

transform this is how trauma transforms

people allows them to spiritually grow

and like understand reality in a way

that better adapted people can't. That's

what I believe. I don't think that it's

just a psychological

fiction, but there's a lot of evidence

that it is. The chief fictional

character at the center of the auto of

that autobiography is oneself. And if

you still want to know what the self

really is, you're making a category

mistake. We sometimes encounter

psychological disorders or surgically

created disunities. We'll get to that in

a second. where the only way to

interpret or make sense of them is to

posit in effect two centers of gravity

or two selves. One isn't creating or

discovering a little bit of a ghost

stuff in doing that. One is simply

creating another abstraction. Right? So

this person is basically saying look

this self is not like you can understand

it in a lot of different ways but

there's no like ghost inside. It's

actually just a a mistake of

categorization. It's a mistake. It's

just an abstraction. It's not a real

thing. like you know a family is an

abstraction. You can't touch it. It

doesn't it's not a real thing. It's just

an abstract idea and that's what the

self is. There's no concretness to it.

It's an abstraction. The fact that these

abstract selves seem so robust and real

is not surprising. And remember that

even a center of gravity has a fairly

robust presence once we start playing

around with it. But no one has ever seen

it or ever will see a center of gravity.

So they're talking about the center of

the self as the center of gravity. I

mean, if you kind of think about a

center of gravity, it's not like a real

thing, right? It's like an abstract

emergent kind of principle that things

will rotate around, but that doesn't

mean that it is a thing. As David Hume

noted, not one person has ever seen the

self either. I can never catch myself at

any time without a perception and can

never observe anything but the

perception. So Hume is basically saying

anytime I try to look for myself, I only

exist in relation to a sensory

perception. So I perceive light but

there's light there. I perceive sound

but there's sound there. So the self of

me and I'm not a philosopher here. So if

you guys understand what Hume is saying,

please leave a note in the comments.

This is my understanding of it, right?

This is my attempt to not just rely on

what I know but try to expand beyond

that a little bit. But Hume is basically

saying that the self doesn't really

exist. It always exists in relation to

something more concrete and can never

observe anything but the perception. If

anyone upon serious and unprejudiced

reflection thinks he has a different

notion of himself, I must confess I can

reason no longer with him. Okay. So Hume

is saying look there's no such thing as

a self. This person is kind of saying

there's the self is kind of the center

of gravity. That's a nebulous thing that

we all kind of coales around. That

doesn't make it real. It's a category

mistake. Okay. And there's also some

decent neuroscience evidence that the

self really doesn't exist. So a good

example of this is what happens with

brain bisection. So this is a also a

philosophy paper um that talks about

basically this this experiment that has

been done this thing that has been

observed that we have these two

hemispheres in the brain and if you

sever them they each have independent

consciousness. So normally we have two

hemispheres of the brain that are

connected. So these two hemispheres like

talk to each other. But in some cases of

like severe epilepsy and things like

that, what we'll actually have to do is

we sever the connection between our two

brain hemispheres. And when we do that,

something weird happens. So for example,

my right brain will perceive an object.

Okay? Like if I show the right brain

like a picture of a banana and then if I

ask the right brain, what is that? The

right brain can't actually tell me. If

you ask the person what is that they

can't use the words because brocus area

or or language proficiency comes from

the left side of the brain. So the right

brain like if you ask them like do you

see that they can nod do you know what

that is they can nod can you say it

right brain says can't speak so it says

no. Then you can even do something

interesting where you can give it like

three objects and you can say can you

pick up the object that matches the

picture and the right brain can do that.

It can pick up the banana instead of the

pencil or the phone. Okay. And then

similarly like the left brain you can do

some other similar weird things with the

left brain where the left brain if you

ask the left brain why are you holding a

banana the left brain has no idea what

the right brain saw but the left brain

will speak if you ask the person if you

show them that okay you're holding a

banana and the left brain sees that

you're holding a banana and then you ask

it why are you holding the banana the

left brain will just make something up I

feel hungry because it is completely

divorced from the consciousness of the

right brain so some of these split brain

experiments suggest that we actually

have multiple conscious consciousnesses

within us, right? That there isn't some

unifying thing at the center. There's

actually there it's just tied to the

brain and if you sever the brain into

two pieces, you sever consciousness into

two pieces. So in this paper, Thomas

Nagel points out that when you biseect

the brain, you end up with basically two

consciousnesses. So this isn't a

situation where there's like one soul in

the center or one consciousness in the

center with different minds attaching to

it. Each segment of the brain has its

own part of consciousness that can be

split apart. There is nothing

transcendent like the soul. And so I

present these just as an example of kind

of the contrary perspective, right? So

like it's important to consider that

there are these brain bisection uh

experiments that basically show the soul

as I've defined it can kind of be

severed into two pieces and is tied to

different parts of the brain. But I

think that like myself and many other

psychiatrists who have worked with

people of trauma can't shake the idea

that there is this non-ordinary reality

that it isn't a hallucination. Trauma

survivors often have a deep

understanding of a sacred world that

sustains them even in the most depriving

and abusive of human environments. This

world is not merely a byproduct of

failed attachment bonds and infancy. Nor

is it a compensation for infant mother

neglect or abuse. This world is an

everlasting fact of humankind's

experience on the planet. And the trauma

survivor knows this better than most. To

acknowledge that the spiritual world is

real in following trauma, it is

recruited for defensive purposes, a

position I take throughout this book,

differs from saying that the angels and

demons that haunt or hallow the

imagination of trauma survivors are

hallucinations or nothing but

derivatives, artifacts or of a defensive

process. So basically Colched is saying

look there are two ways that we can look

at this. One is that our perception of

the non-ordinary reality is in fact a

defensive structure. Our belief that we

can perceive beyond the ordinary is our

mind manufacturing a defense to protect

us. The spiritual realm is a

manufactured defense of the mind versus

the other take which is the spiritual

realm is real and is recruited by the

mind for defensive purposes. This is

also something that you have to decide

for yourself. Okay? Because the key

aspect of this soul or this non-ordinary

reality is that it is niron.

It doesn't have form. It can't be

described in words. Right? So if we go

back to the Christian mystics, they're

like it's this little thing that's deep

down there and you can't see it. Anytime

you look for it, it disappears. If you

try to describe it, you can't adequately

describe it. And this is what I think

Hume the mistake that Hume made. I think

he made a really simple mistake which is

that he was not trained in a series of

practices that access the non-ordinary

reality without perception. The yogis

came to the same conclusion at at some

level that Hume did. They said okay when

I take my experience of reality it is

always tied to a perception right just

like Hume said there's always light

there's always darkness like anytime I

feel myself it is in relation to

something but the yogi said okay hold on

a second let's try to get rid of

perception so they developed this

technique called pratyahara where we

start to exist outside of perception and

that is a step that I don't know if Hume

ever achieved whereas the yogis achieved

that and then they spent decades in that

state of mind exploring further. So I'm

with Colshed on this one that I think

there is a spiritual realm that is

recruited for psychological purposes as

opposed to it being a psychological

defense that is manufactured. But I

think that is a very good argument to

make and I personally don't believe it.

I think it's wrong. I think it's

incomplete. But I think like if that's

where you fall on this spectrum like I

think that's a fully defensible position

and one that we want to represent here.

There's one other element that I really

want to talk about, which is actually

what I wanted to talk about all along,

but we need this context. Okay, so

here's the other really scary thing

about trauma and the spiritual

connection. The benevolent spiritual

pres presences that seem to have saved

their souls begin to lose their

protective power under the pressure of

repeated disappointments and dis

disillusionments. These inner objects

often turn malevolent. Inner protectors

turn into persecutors and the better

angels of our nature are displaced by

the demons of dismemberment,

disembodiment, psychic deadening, and

primitive defense. This is also a

spirituality, but a spirituality of

darkness and dread, and also a

mysticism, but one of violence, demonic

possession, and loss of the soul. But

the traumatized soul in its suffering

descent between heaven and hell and

psychotherapy will sometimes find itself

surrounded by dark forces that resist

healing. And this is also a spiritual

problem. So here's the thing.

Basically Colched is saying look there

is the spiritual realm but unless we

engage with it in the proper way the

spiritual realm can be damaging in and

of itself. And the whole reason that I

went into all of this crap, why didn't I

just stop with the end of dissociative

identity disorder is to get to this

point. So if we assume for a moment that

there is a transcendental

non-ordinary reality, a spiritual

reality, this is what I have seen. This

is why I'm saying this because I have

worked with trauma survivors who are

tortured by this. They are afflicted by

it feels like malevolent forces. Like I

know this is insane to say. I know it's

insane to say. I I know it's insane. I

know it's insane. But when I sit with

these people, there is a limit to what

psychotherapy can accomplish. And I

think callshed and a bunch of other

analysts or psychiatrists who have

worked with people have like we've felt

this because we're in the room. We're

trying to do the psychiatry and we're

doing the good psychiatry. We're doing

the evidence-based psychiatry, but

something is missing.

there's almost a spiritual injury or a

spiritual force that is preventing their

healing. And until we grapple with that,

when I grapple with that, when we

grapple with that, when we work on the

spiritual level, that's when we see real

transformative healing, which people

will also allude to or we've alluded to

earlier that the real transformation in

psychotherapy happens via the soul,

which I don't know if I agree with that.

I think there's transformation at every

level. So, the reason I mention this,

and I may have lost a lot of people

here, but like I do it on purpose, okay?

Because when I've worked with these

trauma survivors, all y'all have been

told that this is ordinary reality and

you're crazy. And so, there are things

that you feel, things that you see,

things that you're aware of that better

adapted people have no idea about. And

so, you think to yourself, "Okay, I'm

[ __ ] crazy, right? I've been

traumatized. That's why I'm perceiving

all these things." And so you pretend

they don't exist. But if they're real

and they're messing up your life, that's

why your life isn't getting better. And

as a clinician, when I grapple with

these things, that's when we start to

see improvement. And so the reason I

even went down this tangent is to let

y'all know that you're not crazy, right?

You may have a psychiatric illness. You

may have dissociative identity disorder.

You should get treatment for that. But

just because you have dissociative

identity disorder doesn't mean that some

of the things that you're experience

experiencing aren't necessarily real.

Right? So there is psychosis, there are

hallucinations, those are not real. But

there's a spiritual element to this. And

this is why it's so hard to tease apart

what is psychosis, what is

hallucination, and what is real. That's

what's hard. That's what's fun. That's

what's exciting to me, right? Grappling

with some of this stuff and also helping

people. So if you're dealing with this,

like what do you do? Okay, so we're

going to take a look at a paper called

Standing in the Spaces. is the

multiplicity of self and the

psychoanalytic relationship. Okay.

Health is the ability to stand in the

spaces between realities without losing

any of them. The capacity to feel like

oneself while being many. So remember

that when we talked about, you know, the

Pokemon analogy, health is being able to

be one you and not have to switch out

Pokemon, right? So, in in the

dissociative identity disorder,

basically what happens is the Pokemon

trainer disappears completely and it's

just Pokemon swapping out. And literally

what we try to do with these people, and

if you're someone who's struggling with

this stuff, this is one of these things

that like don't watch a YouTube video

and expect it to get better. This is

something where like you need treatment.

Okay? So, the right thing to do is to go

to a therapist who specializes

trauma-informed at a minimum,

specializes in trauma disorders, has

experience with dissociative identity

disorder. um if they're trained in parts

work, I think that's like a bonus. So

parts work like internal family systems

is kind of this idea that we have all

these Pokemon within us, but then

they're unified, right? So for most

people, so parts work is kind of getting

the Pokemon to all get along. But the

goal for a lot of this treatment is to

keep people from switching altars,

right? So to be able to be a Pikachu

fighting a water Pokemon or a Pikachu

fighting a fire Pokemon or whatever

Pikachu is weak to. It's being able to

hold yourself without having to use the

defensive switch, right? So instead of

being one of these cheese Pokemon

players who's always swapping out

Pokemon to like exploit your enemy's

weakness, that's what the multi that's

what the parts of you do. That's what

the personalities within you do, right?

They specialize in dealing with certain

things. They turn on and off because

they can't handle an unfair situation.

That's the goal is to sit in the middle

of all of these people. It's not even to

get rid of the altars, right? That

that's I think a they serve a function.

It's to be able to maintain yourself

within the altars. Some sense of

continuity. Now, part of the reason that

this is really hard is because there's a

lot of other stuff that goes into it.

So, one of the things that I've been

lucky enough to see in my training is

residential treatment. And this is where

some of the spiritual stuff and things

like that come in. Because I think that

you should work with a therapist. That's

good evidence-based treatment. But

there's a lot of other stuff like this

is what I cover in Dr. K's guide which

is like there's autonomic rewiring right

so if we think about why an alter

switches there's a certain physiologic

activation which activates the brain in

a certain way and triggers the switch

via hemispheric lateralization. This is

something we talk about in the guide.

It's also like a form of dissociation

and stuff like that. So there's there's

literally like changes in your

physiology that you can make, right? You

can rewire your nervous system to not go

into panic mode. Then there's stuff

around emotional regulation. The other

thing that triggers a switch is emotions

that are too high. Cuz remember, we're

trying to protect the inner child,

right? So, when that emotional energy

becomes too high, this is what caused

the fracture in the first place. This is

what causes us to swap out Pokemon is

when the emotions get too high. When the

physiology gets too high, when the

emotion gets too high, then there's a

lot of stuff about forming a narrative

identity. That's like literally part of

my evidence-based approach when I'm

working with a patient is figuring out

how to form an identity. And there's a

lot of evidence that shows that PTSD

fractures your sense of identity. Trauma

fractures your sense of identity. I used

to know who I am. Then this thing

happened to me. Right? I used to be a

straight A student, top of my class, and

then I got kicked out of school for

academic dishonesty. I don't know who I

am anymore. So what is the process of

developing that identity? And then of

course there's the spiritual element.

And what I've seen working in

residential treatment facilities is that

there's the the trauma therapy, there's

the evidence-based stuff. But the cool

thing about evidence the residential

treatment facilities is we're doing yoga

twice a week. We have a meditation group

that I'm running, right? When I used to

work at MLAN and stuff like that, I

would go to all these residential

treatment facilities, including trauma

treatment facilities, and I would teach

meditation. I would teach spirituality.

and I saw a huge impact on patients. And

so the reason we make resources like

this is because I think there's a lot of

stuff that you can do that isn't

treatment that will still help you. So a

lot of people have asked like, "Hey, has

Dr. K made a video about

depersonalization, derealization,

dissociative identity disorder?" I have

now. And I hope you guys enjoyed it.