Dissociative identity disorder in popular culture  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

"The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill-race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature." --The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1888, R. L. Stevenson

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

Dissociative identity disorder (DID, also referred to as multiple personality disorder or MPD) has been popularized in many works of fiction throughout the world, often as a plot device to allow murderous characters to fool everyone around them. The topic has attracted the attention of professional scholars. This article provides a list of references to DID and MPD in fiction, omitting any which originate through supernatural or other pseudo-scientific causes.

Contents

Books and short stories

  • Mary Higgins Clark's 1992 novel All Around the Town is about a young woman who is believed to have committed a murder. Psychiatric sessions reveal that she was kidnapped and molested as a girl, and as a result she has DID.
  • Shirley Jackson's 1954 novel The Birds' Nest is about a young woman with multiple personalities. Jackson created the character by interviewing a local psychiatrist who had treated a client with DID.
  • Lloyd Rose's 2002 Doctor Who novel Camera Obscura is built around the idea of multiple selves, both psychological and physical.
  • In Stephen King's book series, The Dark Tower, one of the main characters, Susannah Dean, has stereotypical split personalities. Her other personalities are a gentle, proper woman named Odetta Holmes and a rude, vulgar, racist, and violent woman named Detta Walker. These two personalities fuse to become Susannah Dean. When Susannah becomes pregnant, she adopts a new personality named Mia. Another character, a dangerously insane A.I. program named "Blaine" who controls a monorail train, has a timid alternate personality named "little Blaine."
  • Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, begun in 1983, includes characters who manifest more than one personality; this is portrayed as a mere idiosycracy, not a serious psychiatric disorder. One of the most prominent characters is the beggar Altogether Andrews, who has multiple distinct personalities—none of which are named Andrews—each with their own memories and manner of speaking. Other characters with DID in Pratchett's work include Agnes/Perdita in the "witch series" and Miss Pickles/Miss Pointer in Thud.
  • Pat Barker's 1993 novel The Eye in the Door deals with numerous "splits" in the human life and psyche during wartime. The main character, Billy Prior, has a number of such "splits" but deals mostly with his obvious and sinister second self. Referred to in the book as a "fugue state", this self appears to have been created to complete the tasks Billy can't bring himself to do, like fight in France or work as an intelligence agent.
  • Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 novel Fight Club revolves around the bizarre relationship between the mild-mannered protagonist and his radical, anti-consumerist, anarcho-primitivistic alternate personality. The book presents a very idiosyncratic version of MPD in which the identity manifests itself either conterminous to the multiple (as an audiovisual hallucination) or as a more realistic version that manifests while the protagonist believes he is sleeping.
  • In Joe Abercrombie's fantasy series, The First Law Trilogy, a character named Logen Ninefingers occasionally succumbs to a darker alternate personality interested only in killing, which is called the Bloody-Nine.
  • Pat Cadigan's 1992 novel Fools is set in a high-tech future in which various additional personalities can be added and removed at will.
  • John R. Maxim's novel Mosaic is about a government experiment that uses people with DID in an attempt to create the perfect assassin.
  • Robert Silverberg's 1983 short story "Multiples" describes a future where people with multiple personalities form a subculture similar to the modern gay community. In the story, a "singleton" (a person with one personality) fakes having DID to attract a DID partner and ultimately attempts to fragment her personality in order to become multiple herself.
  • Matt Ruff's 2003 novel Set This House in Order concerns two people with classical MPD on a journey of self-discovery.
  • In Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the scientist Dr. Henry Jekyll artificially separates his good and evil natures, causing him to switch between two separate personalities through the consumption of a potion of his own creation.
  • Sidney Sheldon's 1998 novel Tell Me Your Dreams is about a woman named Ashley who has two other selves named Toni and Alette. A string of vicious murders seems to follow Ashley, and the police must work hard to find out who is behind them.
  • In Ted Dekker's 2003 novel Thr3e, the main character has three different personalities: himself, a childhood friend, and the villain.
  • Hervey Cleckley and Corbett Thigpen's 1957 book The Three Faces of Eve is loosely based on the true story of Chris Costner-Sizemore (who later told her own story in the non-fiction books I'm Eve and A Mind of My Own).
  • Science fiction author Philip K. Dick's novels often include themes concerning alternate personalities sometimes intertwined with alternate realities and universes. Notable examples are his 1966 short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", on which the movie Total Recall is loosely based, and his 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly which was also turned into a film.
  • In Shana Mahaffey's Sound's Like Crazy, a voice actress, Holly Miller has developed a Multiple Personality Disorder because of a terrible past.
  • Eoin Colfer once wrote a mental illness with similar symptoms to Dissociative Identity Disorder in his Artemis Fowl (series) series called an Atlantis Complex, which features heavily in Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex. Due to experience with magic as well as guilt over criminal misdeeds, the title character develops this and produces a personality which calls itself 'Orion'.
  • In the Monster High toy line and book series, there is a character named Jackson Jekyll with an alternate personality named Holt Hyde (DJ Hyde in the books). The two personalities are unaware of one another's existence, with Jackson being characterized as a "geek" with a somewhat dry sense of humor (especially in the journals that come with the dolls) and is outgoing and friendly, whereas Holt is more aggressive and short-tempered, and also loves to party and is something of a playboy, and loves music and is a self-styled DJ. In the books, the change between them is triggered by heat (when Jackson gets too hot, DJ emerges, and if DJ gets cold, Jackson returns) and they have no physical transformation, other than DJ have a more wild fashion sense, not wearing glasses, and messing up his hair, while Jackson's fashion sense is described as "geek chic", with glasses and neatly groomed hair. In the toy line, Jackson emerges during the day while Holt comes out at night, and they are physically different as well, with Holt having blue skin, fire for hair, an eyebrow ring, and a tattoo on his face and back, whereas Jackson has normal Caucasian skin, green eyes, and black hair with hints of blond (as shown in the prototype image for Gloom Beach). In the books, the other monster characters seem aware of the difference between Jackson and DJ (except for Frankie), but in the journals, other monsters aren't aware at all and find it odd that Jackson, a human, is attending their school.
  • In C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, at least two of the ghosts have good and evil personalities that have become physically distinct.
  • In William Diehl's Novels Primal Fear and sequels Show of Evil and Reign in Hell one of the storys main characters Aaron Stampler Appears to suffers from DID but is later revealed to be an act.
  • In Max Brook's novel World War Z Paul Redeker developed an alternate personality named Xolelwa Azania. He spent all his life suppressing his emotions because of the hatred and cruelty he witnesses in apartheid South Africa. His new personality came up shortly after he wrote the zombie plan that saved the world, but involved using people as human bait.

Movies and television

  • In 1967's Indian Bollywood film Raat Aur Din, directed by Satyen Bose, the lead female role played by Nargis Dutt suffered from dual personality disorder. Nargis, for her role, was awarded with National Film Award for Best Actress.
  • In the 1976 television film Sybil, based on the novel by Flora Rheta Schreiber, a young woman is found to have at least 16 separate personalities. The fictionalized case of "Sybil", loosely based on the life of Shirley Ardell Mason, has become the iconic image of MPD/DID for most of the American public.
  • In the 1975 television film Trilogy of Terror, the second segment concerns the rivalry of two sisters who turn out to be sharing a body. A similar story is the subject of an episode of the television series Magnum, P.I.
  • Latka, one of Andy Kaufman's characters from the sitcom Taxi, was characterised as having multiple personalities. The normally shy Latka sometimes presents as womanizing Vic Ferrari. In at least one episode, he assumes the personality of the main character of Taxi, Alex Reiger.
  • Norman Bates in the 1960 film Psycho (adapted from Robert Bloch's 1959 novel) can be said to have dual personalities, since he has internalized his dead mother.
  • Mort Rainey in the 2004 film Secret Window (adapted from Stephen King's novella) has dual personalities, coexisting with John Shooter.
  • Multiple personalities are a catalyst for numerous storylines on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live since its premiere in 1968. The lead character Victoria Lord (Erika Slezak) has been multiple since her adolescence. Originally she had only one other alter, Niki Smith, who challenged her in a stereotyped "struggle for dominance". In the mid-1990s, Victoria's multiplicity was brought into line with then-current beliefs about so-called DID and she was given a vast array of alters and a back story involving childhood trauma. One of her other main personalities, Jean Randolph, is the personality who is considered to be the gatekeeper personality. This personality has no emotion and is the one who decides when it is right for each personality to come out. This personality only comes out very rarely when the emotion is too intense for the others. Victoria's daughter Jessica Buchanan (Bree Williamson) has also had to deal with an alternate personality, Tess and a gatekeeper personality named Bess. Recently a third alter, Wes, has also emerged.
  • The 1999 film Fight Club features an unnamed narrator with dual personalities.
  • The 1992 film Raising Cain is about a child psychologist who turns out to be harboring several personalities in stereotyped fashion. The cause of his mental disease is said to be mind control experiments performed on him as a small child by his father.
  • The 1994 film Color of Night, starring Bruce Willis, the 1996 movies Primal Fear and Shattered Mind, 1995's Never Talk to Strangers and 2001's Session 9, and the 2003 thriller Identity feature multiple personalities and explore the idea of responsibility for another personality's actions. The multiples in these films are characterized stereotypically as meek, peaceful people housing violent, psychopathic alternate personalities.
  • In the 1996 comedy film The Nutty Professor, overweight professor Sherman Klump (played by Eddie Murphy) creates a potion to lose weight. He succeeds, but finds that the potion only works for short periods. Wanting to keep the potion a secret until he perfects it, he calls himself "Buddy Love" when he is using it. Able to do all sorts of things he couldn't enjoy as a fat man, "Buddy" (also played by Murphy) becomes an independent personality, demonstrating a crass, in-your-face personality at odds with Klump's shy politeness.
  • Me, Myself & Irene (2000) starring Jim Carrey as Charlie Baileygates and Hank Evans, is a slapstick farce about a man who becomes a "split personality" after suppressing angers and frustrations for years, his new personality 'Hank' actively seeking confrontation where Charlie avoided it, their relationship culminating in the two literally struggling for control over parts of their shared body.
  • The 2005 film Hide and Seek features a young girl with an "imaginary friend". When she attributes murders and bizarre events to the doings of her companion, we are to assume she is multiple and that her second self is committing all the horrors. Instead, it is her psychologist father whose personality abruptly split, true Jekyll-and-Hyde style, after catching his wife with another man.
  • French Stewart played a multiple in an episode of Becker entitled "Papa Does Preach".
  • The popular sitcom Barney Miller guest-starred Stefan Gierasch as a multiple in the episode "Power Failure", which initially aired December 9, 1976.
  • In X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), mutant Jean Grey is described as having developed a split personality as a result of mental barriers placed in her mind by her mentor, Professor Xavier. This "creature" represented all her primal urges, and called itself "Phoenix". In X-Men: Evolution, two characters are subject to DID at some point in the series. Rogue, capable of absorbing the powers and personalities of others, suffers from a variation of DID after her accumulation of psyches overwhelms her and she loses her sanity. Legion, or David, Xavier's son has multiple personalities, each with a particular mutant ability.
  • The NBC TV series Heroes features a character, Niki Sanders with two other selves referred as Jessica and Gina, implied to have been the result of her abusive childhood; the 'Jessica' personality is even implied to be based on Niki's deceased twin sister of the same name. Later in the series, the main villain, Sylar, develops multiple personalities as a side effect of the use of the shapeshifting ability when used in combination with his acquired psychometry; his mind has begun to fracture into the different personas of those whom he has shapeshifted into.
  • On Smallville, when exposed to red kryptonite, Clark Kent manifested a secondary personality who lacked Clark's usual inhibitions and restraints when using his powers and in daily life; on another occasion, he was mentally programmed to become a Kryptonian personality known as Kal-El. Black kryptonite was used to separate Clark and Kal-El into two separate bodies, later being used to split Davis Bloome into his human persona and his alien alter ego Doomsday; an earlier accident with black kryptonite caused Lex Luthor to split into the 'good' Alexander and the 'evil' Lex before Clark reversed the process.
  • In an episode of the USA Network series Psych, (2006) the main character confronts a murderer with typically theatrical split personalities.
  • Various episodes of popular TV shows such as The X-Files, Psi Factor and Judging Amy, use the idea of multiples with a hidden "killer personality". The film Saimin plays on this idea with one personality being a demonic possession by a malevolent incarnation of the Monkey King; the Touched by an Angel episode "Loser" states that multiples are possessed by demons. The Babylon 5 episode "Divided Loyalties" (1993) postulates a hidden killer personality programmed into the mind of a telepathic woman and triggered by a telepathically sent password.
  • The 2005 Indian psychological thriller film Anniyan, directed by S. Shankar, portrays Ambi, an honest lawyer who is found to be a weakling and unattractive to women. He often deals with small-claims cases, which involve bribery and careless workers. During his childhood, he witnesses the devastating experience of his sister's death. The cause of her death, being electrocuted by a hanging power line, is believed to be the result of careless government workers and corrupt politicians. A lawsuit on the related individuals also becomes unsuccessful. He eventually develops the personality named Anniyan, a 'grim reaper' who brutally assassinates lawbreakers. After being rejected from his childhood love interest, he also develops a personality named Remo, a model.
  • The 1993 Indian horror film Manichitrathazhu, centers around Ganga, a woman who develops split personality disorder during a period of stay at her husband's family house. Unusual events transpire during the course of the movie and is believed by the superstitious family to be the work of the spirit of a dancer who was murdered decades ago, seeking to avenge her death. It is later revealed that Ganga had developed a second personality, that of the vengeful dancer. The film has been adapted into several other Indian languages.
  • In the ER, episode "Jigsaw", and in the Nip/Tuck episode "Montana / Sassy / Justice", patients are portrayed with stereotypical dissociative disorders.
  • Jacqueline Hyde, a villain in the game show Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?, is a teenager with (as usual) a sweet, innocent personality and an insane, evil personality. Her voice alternates along with her personality between soft-spoken and loud and "modulated."
  • Professional wrestler Mick Foley uses multiple personalities as a gimmick.
  • In 2008, TNA Wrestling held a storyline involving Dustin Rhodes in which he was struggling with a dark alter-ego known as Black Reign.
  • "Alternate", the season nine premiere of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is a takeoff on Primal Fear.
  • In Code Monkeys, Todd shares his body with Pardue, a Dungeons & Dragons fan who thinks the everyday world is part of a role-playing game world and is unaware of Todd's existence, and Tiffany, Todd and Pardue's nymphomaniac "girlfriend".
  • In the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Catherine Willows comes into contact with a killer named Tammy Felton who was kidnapped as a child, when her name was Melissa Marlowe. In order to escape punishment, Melissa/Tammy pretends to be multiple.
  • In the two-part episodes "The Big Game" and "Revelations" of the television series Criminal Minds, Special Agent Spencer Reid is kidnapped by a serial killer named Tobias Hankel (played by James Van Der Beek). The killer's heroin addiction, along with mounting pressure from his abusive father, causes him to "snap" and take on two other personalities, that of his now deceased father and the Archangel Raphael, a fanatic religious personality who kills people who he thinks are sinners that must be punished. In another episode, "Conflicted", the team encounters a young man named Adam Jackson (played by Jackson Rathbone) who rapes and kills male teenagers in a resort during spring break. They later discover that Adam has a vengeful female personality called Amanda which appears to have resulted as a method of coping with sexual abuse he suffered from his stepfather as a child. In yet another episode, "Reflection of Desire", the team must deal with a series of murders perpetrated by a devoted son in order to prove his manliness to his mother. However, at the end of the episode, the man and his mother walk out on the steps of their house, faced with FBI agents, and the team sees that his mother has been dead for many years and is a decomposed corpse, and the man had DID.
  • The 2003 film Haute Tension (Switchblade Romance) ends with a "killer multiple" revelation.
  • In the cartoon Transformers Animated, the Decepticon Blitzwing has three separate personalities and faces to match.
  • In the cartoon Beavis and Butt-head, Beavis has a separate identity, the Great Cornholio, who usually surfaces when he consumes a large amount of sugar or caffeine, or occasionally in moments of extreme anger.
  • In the cartoon Garbage Pail Kids, the character Split Kit has one side that is good and the other that is bad.
  • In an episode of The Mod Squad, Carolyn Jones played a woman with two personalities, one of which was the stereotypical passive "good girl", while the other was a psychotic who had put out a contract on the "good" one.
  • Showtime's United States of Tara is about a mother of two who actually is diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Trying integration therapy as opposed to taking medication to "suppress" her other selves (a medical impossibility), she originally evidenced four selves or "alters", with four more revealing themselves as the series continued. Some of the selves share memories with the others. Her family behaves as if these selves are guests.
  • In the 2009 remake My Bloody Valentine 3D, Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles) shares a body with murderous Harry Warden.
  • In an episode of American Dad!, Roger discovers that he has a second personality named Sidney. After numerous ridiculous incidents, Roger kills Sidney.
  • In the television series My Own Worst Enemy, the plot revolves mainly around this topic, the main character being a secret agent who has been artificially 'granted' a secondary personality to live as when he is not required, with the series exploring the dynamic between the two characters after they become aware of the other's existence.
  • India: On NDTV Imagine's popular soap opera Jyoti, Sudha Sharma exhibits dual personality, morphing into the confident and brazen character "Devika" by night.
  • In the 1990s soap opera, Melrose Place, Dr. Kimberly Shaw suffered from what was called multiple personality disorder. She was also variously characterized as psychotic and possessed by a demon.
  • In the British television series Jam and Jerusalem, Rosie (Dawn French) is a lower-class cleaner and cheese factory worker who has an alter named Margaret, a stern and demeaning older woman. It is hinted that this alter was created during a sexual trauma earlier in her life. In spite of this, and her childlike mind, Rosie is a well-loved member of the community and mentions a husband and children, although these remain unseen characters and it is never verified whether they exist outside her mind or not.
  • In the BBC television series Doctor Who, the title character of the Doctor is capable of regenerating into a new body when his old one is too badly injured, the new body acquiring a new personality to match; the spin-off novel Timewyrm: Revelation reveals that the Doctor's former personalities remain in his subconscious after the regeneration process is complete, with the Doctor sometimes drawing on the skills of his former selves to help him (Timewyrm: Genesys, State of Change) when the situation calls for it.
  • In an episode of the television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Buck Rogers suspects that Alison Michaels (played by Kimberly Beck) is a transmute, a split personality with the genetic ability to transform into an entirely separate entity during times of extreme emotional distress. Her evil personality, a wild-haired woman named Sabrina (played by Trisha Noble), demonstrates superhuman strength and powerful psychokinetic abilities.
  • In the 2008 machinima series Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction, it is revealed that the character Church (unbeknown to him) is The Alpha, an AI created from the mind of the director of Project Freelancer. Because the AI could not be copied, it was deliberately subjected to traumatic scenarios to force it to split into fragments. Agent Washington refers to the process as “reverse-engineering a multiple personality disorder.” Each new AI was a specific component of the Alpha; embodying aspects such as rage, deceit, logic, memories, creativity, etc. In the previous Blood Gulch Chronicles series, a fragment that embodies The Alpha's rage, called Omega, possessed the character Doc. The pacifistic medic and extremely violent, manipulative AI frequently conversed with each other. They were distinguished by American and British accents. It is later shown that Epsilon, the fragment that embodies Alpha's memory can become any of the other fragments by replacing its memory with the fragment's memory. While acting as Delta, the Alpha's logic, it warns that Epsilon is not aware of its memory replacement and if it discovers its original memories it could become emotionally unstable and dangerous as it did in the past.
  • The 2009 film Youth in Revolt has the main character create a rebellious alter-ego.
  • The 2010 film Black Swan has the main character experience hallucinations.
  • In the Canadian series Murdoch Mysteries, the suspect in the season 3 episode Me, Myself, and Murdoch has two personalities.
  • An episode of Stargate SG-1 depicts Daniel Jackson as having at least 12 alternate personalities after an alien traps him in a stasis pod and downloads the memories of other dying aliens into his mind, in order to save them. The alien who does this to Daniel has himself at least 6 personalities as a result of a similar transfer. At the end of the episode, each of the personalities in Daniel Jackson's body are transferred over to the alien's body. The effects of this transfer on the alternates and the currently-existing set in the alien's body is not discussed beyond mention of the fact that 'there is a chance they may not all survive'.
  • In the City Sushi episode of South Park, Butters is misdiagnosed with DID by a psychiatrist ("Dr Janus") who actually suffers from it himself and puts Butters in situations that seem to confirm the boy's condition.
  • The 2010 movie The Ward depicts a young institutionalized woman who, while trying to escape from the institution and a resident killer ghost, finds that all the other killed patients and the ghost are alternative personalities she created in order to deal with a violent abduction in her childhood.
  • In the TV show Lie to me, Cal works on a case of a woman who claims to have had a vision of murder only for it be discovered she has multiple personalities and the Lightman group must work out if the personality who witnessed the crime is a witness or the murderer. The personalities include a college student, prostitute, the silent protector and the original personality that the team inadvertently awaken during hypnotherapy.

Manga and anime

  • In Hayao Miyazaki's anime movie Spirited Away one of the main characters, Haku/Kohaku is a young boy who is really a dragon in guise of a human. He has a second personality; while trying the help the protagonist Chihiro/Sen he takes the form of a young boy and seems calm, kind and friendly, but when he is also working under the villain Yubaba's forceful control he will use his true form which is a large, white dragon and is cold, steely, and contemptuous. Chihiro later discovers that Haku is not a boy but a dragon who is being controlled by Yubaba and often performing various missions for her (the most notable is when she has him steal her sister Zenniba's solid gold, monogrammed seal). She later helps him break Yubaba's control over him by helping Haku remember that he was once the dragon river spirit of the "Kohaku River" whose home was destroyed to build apartments and his real name is "Kohaku", thus setting him free. "Haku" is Japanese for white which may refer to the color of his skin, his clothes, the color of his true dragon form and his purity. 'Kohaku" however, means amber but can also be translated to the word "dragon". His full Japanese name "Nigihayami Kohakunushi" means literally "white river dragon boy" His name was shortened to "Kohaku" in the English dub possibly to prevent confusion of his names complexity and meaning. It should also be noted that "Kohaku" is also the name of a type of Koi fish, an animal renowned in Japan for their courage and were once thought to be the form of baby dragons, and would not become dragons until they climbs the waterfall that leads to "Heavens Gate" and become river dragons.
  • Monster has Inspector Runge thinking that Johan Liebert is Dr. Tenma's split personality, although the former is a real person.
  • In the anime, Magical Project S, Misao Amano has a dark magical girl self, Pixy Misa. While Misao is gentle and soft-spoken, Misa is arrogant and loud-spoken. She is unaware of what she does as Misa until when she sees her baton and, at same time, discovers that Sasami is Pretty Sammy. This causes Ramia's magic to get worse on Misao as she begins to transform into Misa without hypnotism, referencing to Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where the first titular character transforms into the second character without the potion. Sammy, with Misao's help, has managed to get rid of Ramia's magic and restores peace in Misao's mind with Misa leaving.
  • In the popular Japanese manga MPD Psycho, made into a TV miniseries directed by Takashi Miike, a police detective who is multiple is tracking down a serial killer who is also multiple, and fears that the clues point to one of the people in his own system as the murderer.
  • In the anime Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, one of the main characters, Lady Une, has two separate personalities, a ruthless and cruel military officer ("Col. Une"), and a caring advocate of peace ("Saint Une"). They're easy to distinguish by their clothing and manners. The two sides are reconciled into one after she is shot and nearly killed; she goes into a coma and emerges as one person. The now psychologically complete and emotionally stable "Lady Une" helps end the war, establishes the Preventors, and adopts Mariemaia Khushrenada (Treize Khushrenada's daughter) as her own.
  • In InuYasha, Suikotsu of the Shichi'nintai (Band of Seven) has two personalities: a good and peaceful doctor, and a ruthless mass murderer. At first the Good Doctor is the dominant one, with Evil Suikotsu relegated to his subconscious; as the story advances, Evil Suikotsu takes over more frequently, and later becomes the dominant one.
  • In Rosario + Vampire, the main female protagonist, Moka Akashiya, has two sides of her. One side, her Outer self, is a sweet, innocent, and shy pink-haired teenage girl who enjoys the company of her friends. The other side, her Inner self, is an aristocratic, ignorant, and sometimes cruel silver-haired vampire who is a ruthless brute to all of her opponents. This is due to a cross that she keeps on her chest as it seals most of her power. It can only be removed by the male protagonist.
  • In the manga Rurouni Kenshin, the titular character has two personalities. One side, often referred to as Kenshin Himura or Ken-san, is mild-mannered, very polite, and compassionate, and always refers to himself in third person (i.e. as "this one"); the other side, often referred to as Hitokiri Battousai, is cold and ruthless, and refers to himself in first person. Battousai is Kenshin's personality from his time as an assassin; however, he avoids reverting to the Battousai personality whenever possible.
  • In the anime Sukisho, the two main characters develop alternate personalities as a result of abuse in a scientific experiment.
  • In Saint Seiya, the Gold Saint Gemini Saga, has two very different personalities. The kind Saga is said to be angelic, almost god-like, and pure; whether the Evil Saga is the complete opposite, pure evil, no remorse for his actions, and a cold-blooded demonic being. Both personalities are distinguishable by his appearance, the good Saga is blonde (manga) or has blue hair (anime), whether his evil counterpart has blood-shot eyes and has either black (manga) or gray (anime) hair. His evil personality was dispelled by Pegasus Seiya when he flashed Saga with the Shield of Athena, thereby getting rid of the evil personality once and for all.
  • The anime film Kara no Kyōkai depicts the main character Shiki as having split personalities, having the feminine side (式Shiki) and her masculine side (織Shiki). She also has a third personality, a 'genderless' killing personality born from the 'origin' of void.
  • The visual novel Tsukihime depicts the main character Shiki Tohno as having split personalities. The personality that normally presents itself is the second personality created by his adopted father's hypnosis. The first personality, Shiki Nanaya, is a smooth, confident, amoral killer and the suppressed original personality of Shiki Tohno.
  • The visual novel G-Senjou no Maou presents a protagonist who is suspected to be a DID sufferer by both his psychiatrist and the audience; the game's antagonist is heavily foreshadowed as one of his personalities.
  • In the anime and manga Cardcaptor Sakura, Yukito Tsukishiro famously exhibits signs of MPD after his "true personality", Yue, emerges. It is a fairly stereotypical display, including memory loss and radical differences between both personalities despite them sharing similarities.
  • In the anime and manga D.N.Angel, the main character, Daisuke Niwa, has genetically inherited a separate personality, Dark. While Daisuke is shy and unsure of himself, Dark is flirtatious and confident. The manifestation of Dark was caused by Daisuke's heart being broken by the girl he was about to confess his feelings to. Acting as an antithesis, Satoshi Hiwatari has inherited a second self called Krad. While Satoshi is relatively calm and quiet, Krad is (of course) a sadistic homicidal sociopath. It is unknown how Krad came to be.
  • In the anime and manga Yu-Gi-Oh!, the main character, Yugi Mutou, has a second personality, Yami no Yūgi (meaning "Dark Yugi") later revealed to be the long dead pharaoh Atem. Atem seems to have Yugi's best interest at heart, and the two cooperate and share achievements and goals. Yugi's friend Ryo Bakura has a similar alternate personality, Yami no Bakura ("Dark Bakura"), that is thought to be a long dead tomb robber and king of thieves from ancient Egypt. Bakura's second self is manipulative, self-serving, and sadistic even toward Bakura himself. Since Yami Yugi and Yami Bakura had been actual persons who died, their spirits trapped inside the Millennium items, Yugi Mutou and Ryo Bakura can best be said to be hosting walk-in spirits.
  • Another character in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Marik Ishtar, develops a more theatrically typical form of DID during his childhood, due to traumatic events (namely, his isolation from the real world and his father's mistreatment of him, his sister Ishizu, and his adoptive brother Rishid/Odion). The psychotic alter ego still goes by the name Marik, but it is made very clear that the two are separate personalities. After being defeated, Marik regains control of himself.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Sartorius (Takuma Saiou) and Pro League king, The D (DD), develop destructive split personalities after being exposed to an alien energy.
  • In YuYu Hakusho, the villain of the Chapter Black Saga, Shinobu Sensui, has developed seven personalities after witnessing the death of weaker demons by humans. These seven personalities help him achieve Sacred Energy, because their presence shortens the training from 49 years to 7 years. They each have their own names and characteristics: 'Minoru' is intellectual and charismatic, Kazuya is sadistic and bloodthirsty, Naru is a girly-girl, etc.
  • The central character of Elfen Lied has two personalities; 'Lucy', a cold and sadistic murderer who takes pleasure in killing humans; and 'Nyu', generated when a bullet grazed Lucy's skull, who has (initially) limited mental capacity and has none of Lucy's memories, nor awareness of what Lucy does when active, contrary to Lucy being fully aware of Nyu and her activities. Furthermore, at the climax of the manga (but not adapted into the anime), Lucy develops another, even more sinister and malicious personality, who takes over the body when Lucy exhausts herself.
  • Kozue Aoba of Mahoraba has five personalities who differ drastically from one another.
  • The character Hatsuharu Sohma from Fruits Basket who is usually calm, well mannered, and soft spoken has another personality that his other family members call Black Haru, a violent sexual deviant. It originated because of being teased a lot when he was young. One of Haru's cousins, Kagura Sohma, is usually kind, shy and sweet, but also has another personality, which has a violent temper that is second only to Hatsuharu's.
  • Momoka Nishizawa from Sgt. Frog has two different selves who work very well together without memory loss, although one is much more confident and manipulative than the other. Tamama also appears to have a split personality, but it is unknown if he has two "Alters" or this is just a sudden change in emotion. Momoka's mother also appears to have this personality trait (or traits) as her daughter.
  • In both the manga and anime versions of 3x3 Eyes, all members of the Sanjiyan race have two selves.
  • Launch in Dragon Ball has two different selves which alternate whenever she sneezes. The normal Launch has blue hair and is kind and sweet, but her other self is a gun-toting blond gangster.
  • In Hellsing, one of the Vatican's assassins, Yumiko has another personality, Yumie Takagi. In stereotypical fashion, Yumiko is somewhat of a coward, while Yumie is a ruthless killer. Yumiko does not appear in Hellsing proper, but this does not negate her presence, since she only appears in battle.
  • The character Akito from the manga and anime Air Gear has a separate self called Agito. Akito is a kind, gentle boy, while Agito is his stronger, darker, bloodthirsty side. Akito and Agito are aware of each other's presences. They signal that they are trading places by shifting an eyepatch from one eye to the other. When the right eye is covered, Akito is running the body; if the left eye is covered, Agito is in charge. They can share memories and information, especially if it is of particular interest to the other, but also hide information from each other with a bit of effort. However, there is also a third personality, Lind, hidden in a cage deep within the mental realm of Akito/Agito. Lind is far more aggressive and powerful than Agito.
  • Yaya, the main character in the manga Othello, has an alternate personality named Nana. Nana initially comes out if Yaya sees her reflection or suffers a head injury, but is able to take the body more easily as the story progresses. Eventually, Nana leaves Yaya.
  • In Paranoia Agent, the episode "Double Lips" features Harumi Chono, tutor of Lil' Slugger's victim Yuichi Taira. She has an alternate personality named Maria. In the time-honored fashion, Harumi is a modest, reserved, and shy tutor and assistant, while Maria is a wild prostitute who comes out at night. The two communicate through Harumi's answering machine. Maria "wants to be free" and this results in a battle for dominance that escalates when Harumi gets engaged.
  • In Mega Man Star Force and its anime and manga equivalents, the character Tsukasa Futaba (English Pat Sprigs) has an evil self named Hikaru (Rey). When he fuses with his FM partner Gemini, both personalities become two separate entities.
  • In Bleach, Ichigo Kurosaki develops an Inner Hollow, a literal "inner demon", forming into a separate personality. The Inner Hollow tries to take over during later battles but is subdued with training.
  • In Perfect Blue, the main character Mima plays a character in the TV drama Double Bind who splits after being raped, in order to repress the memories and "save her soul". The second self identifies as a model, and proceeds to commit a number of gruesome murders, which forms the main storyline of the drama. Mima's manager, Rumi, also seems to have a Jekyll-and-Hyde type split personality. She identifies herself as 'the real Mima' and denounces Mima as an impostor. She then commits a series of murders echoing Double Bind.
  • In Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei, one of the female students, Kaere Kimura, has MPD after undergoing mental trauma from having to adapt to the customs of the separate countries she visited as an exchange student. Her main personality, Kaere, resembles that of a stereotypical foreigner who flashes her panties and constantly threatens to sue others, while her second self, Kaede, is gentle, easily embarrassed and generally possesses the traits of a yamato nadeshiko.
  • In Samurai Deeper Kyo, two of the main character's personalities inhabit the same body. Kyoshiro (the gentler of the two) switched personality with Demon Eyes Kyo when he draws his sword. As the plot progresses, Kyo becomes dominant, but Kyoshiro often takes over when Kyo's life is threatened by an enemy he cannot defeat.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam 00, the character Allelujah Haptism developed another personality named Hallelujah as a result of the experiments done to his mind during his childhood in order to make him a Supersoldier. The Hallelujah persona is aggressive, cold and sadistic in contrast to Allelujah. When they switch personalities, Allelujah's fringe of hair covering his right side of the face switches to the left, concealing his grayish left eye and exposing his gold right eye. Allelujah is most likely heterochromic, because both personalities combine at the season one finale as the result of a near-fatal battle.
  • In Shigofumi, Fumika developed another personality after abuse from her father.
  • In Kaori Yuki's gothic manga Earl Cain, the character Riff is developed by DELILAH to be loyal and loving to Cain, while his true personality is a very evil man. While Riffael is primarily right-handed, Riff became left after attempts at suicide and thus he became ambidextrous.
  • In the manga of Fullmetal Alchemist, the Homunculus Greed is reborn in the body of a Xingeese prince, Ling Yao. Although it was originally intended for Greed to consume Ling's soul, the prince's willpower caused the two to instead constantly fight for dominance over the body.
  • In the visual novel and anime Shuffle!, the female character Lisianthus has a twin sister named Kikyou, whom was absorbed inside Lisianthus' body at birth, making them share the same body; however, Lisianthus took control most of the time. Sometimes Kikyou would switch places with Lisianthus, without any of the other characters noticing any difference, until they notice their different personalities.
  • In Bottle Fairy, four fairies merge together to appear as a single human girl, but each fairy retains her own individuality.
  • In the manga Change 123, the protagonist Motoko has three main alternate personalities which arose after her rigorous training by three different "fathers" in three types of combat skills. These personalities are named Hibiki, Fujiko and Mikiri (collectively known as HiFuMi) and are proficient in karate, weaponry, and submission moves, respectively. There is also a fourth personality, Zero, who is inhumanely powerful and ruthless.
  • In the manga Soul Eater, the character Soul gains an inner personality in the form of a devil like imp after being infected with black blood. He occasionally controls Soul's actions.
  • In the manga Psyren, the character Sakurako Amamiya has a separate personality referred to as 'Abyss.' Abyss has no inhibitions, unlike Amamiya, and is also partial to unessicary violence. Abyss' skin tone is darker than Amamiya's.
  • In Urusei Yatsura, Lum's childhood friend, Ran has a split personality as she talks like a mean hag when she's angry but as a sweet innocent girl when she isn't.
  • In the anime and manga series Black Lagoon, Hansel and Gretel, also commonly referred to as the "Vampire Twins", switch personalities with each other from time to time (Hansel becomes Gretel, and vice versa), changing their clothing and voices. To further complicate things, they swap identities off-screen, and it is never made clear as to what gender the twins are. It can also be assumed that "Hansel" and "Gretel" are not, in fact, their real names, but are the personalities that they have adopted.
  • Ussop from the manga One Piece has an alter ego Sogeking, who has a different personality, when he puts on his mask.
  • In the visual novel Remember 11: The Age of Infinity, the character Hotori Suzukage has several personalities. She is confined at a psychiatric hospital, because one of her personalities, Inubushi Keiko, committed mass murder.

Comics

  • The Batman supervillain Two-Face has a Jekyll-Hyde split personality owing to injury which scarred one side of his face, causing him to go insane and flip a scarred double-headed coin for decisions. Another Batman foe, The Ventriloquist, also has a second (violent, of course) personality named Scarface manifesting itself through a dummy.
  • The Hulk was originally portrayed as a hybrid of Frankenstein's Monster and Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, with Bruce Banner as the scientific Jekyll and the Hulk personality as having characteristics of both Hyde and the Monster, but with an inner moral compass that made him heroic. In the 1980s, the backstory of the Incredible Hulk was reworked by writer Peter David to fit then-current beliefs about DID, with the Hulk's multiple incarnations reflecting different aspects of Bruce Banner's personality- the childish 'Savage Hulk' representing Banner's childhood wish to be strong enough to protect his mother and the gray 'Joe Fixit' representing the typical teenager Banner never allowed himself to be-, repressed by Bruce due to his childhood abuse at the hands of his father. He came to believe that showing emotion caused people to be hurt. Psychiatrist Doc Samson was able to merge his personalities, but he eventually regressed back into his multiple state, and after Peter David left the book, writer Paul Jenkins revealed that the supposed merged personality was the Professor, another personality created by Doc Samson- later explained as representing an idealised version of Banner while also representing the accumulation of Banner's past experiences as he became an adult-, in the hopes that it would become the true personality. Banner was revealed to have had hundreds of personalities in his subconscious, but most of these appear to have 'died' since a confrontation with the Devil Hulk- his 'evil' side-, although another identity has since emerged in the Planet Hulk storyline in the form of the tactical expert known as the Green Scar, or Worldbreaker.
  • As written by Doug Moench, Moon Knight had three separate civilian identities. Often he showed confusion as to which was his "real" personality. He eventually did develop something similar to stereotyped multiple personality disorder, but was apparently integrated. His counterpart in Marvel's Ultimate Marvel line not only has four personalities to begin with, he later creates a fifth, which goes by the name Ronin. In this version he never integrates.
  • Rose and Thorn are the personalities of two different multiples in DC Comics. In the 1940s, Rose Canton, who later married the original Green Lantern, had a self called Thorn, a plant-based supervillain. The 1970s version depicted gentle Rose and feisty crimefighting Thorn, who was out to avenge the murder of Rose's father. Rose had no idea that Thorn shared her body. This latter series was remade in 2003 to incorporate a storyline which fit then-current beliefs about DID – the personality of Thorn was revealed to have been induced by an unscrupulous therapist.
  • Typhoid Mary, an enemy/lover of the Marvel Comics character, Daredevil, is one of three coexisting persons in one body. In accordance with the usual stereotypes, Typhoid Mary is a violent seductress, Bloody Mary is a psychopathic murderer, and "Mary" is a timid pacifist.
  • Crazy Jane of the Doom Patrol has 64 distinct personalities as a result of being molested by her father as a child. Each of them has a unique skill or ability. Some aspects of her story are based on real-life multiple Truddi Chase.
  • Aurora, a superheroine from Alpha Flight, was actually diagnosed with DID. As in Rose and the Thorn, a mild-mannered self dominates during Aurora's normal, day-to-day life, and a more adventurous self is responsible for her excursions as a costumed hero, although Aurora is aware (but disapproves) of her other's existence. Aurora's DID was apparently cured or suppressed for a time (i.e., the two selves were integrated).
  • In the 1994 Zero Hour version of the Legion of Super-Heroes series, Luorno Durgo or Triplicate Girl was considered to have multiple personality disorder at birth. Natives of her world can split into three bodies, but all three usually have identical personalities; her three separate selves were considered a shameful defect. Luorno was incarcerated in an institution where her three selves were tortured to force them to behave identically. She escaped and was adopted by R.J. Brande, the father of Chameleon Boy.
  • The villain Legion, son of the X-Men leader Professor Xavier, developed DID after being victimized in a terrorist attack. Each of his personalities soon harnessed a different aspect of his natural-born mutant powers.
  • A major premise in The Badger is that hero Norbert Sykes has multiple personalities. Only one of them is unaware that the others exist.
  • Two persons that assumed the mantle of the supervillain known as the Green Goblin (Norman Osborn and his son Harry) have been depicted with multiple personalities in various media.
  • Kano Jurgen, main protagonist of Luka Delaney's full color webcomic Kagerou, seems to suffer from DID, sharing his mind with many alters, three of which have taken over his body at least once in the story. They are Kid (a child), Red (the ghost of a serial killer), and Dark (Kid's brother).
  • Newgrounds animator Emily Youcis animations sometimes are about a dog named Alfred Alfer. Alfred's childhood being neglectful and unloving, he tries to fill the void using the employees of Burrito Bell in "The Rise of Alfred". His Nazi Dictator alter-ego makes much of the animated flashes he is presented in. His cameo appearance on Newgrounds was about a year before the release of Team Fortress 2.

Computer and video games

  • The main character of Xenogears, Fei Fong Wong, has three personalities, who appear physically as well as psychologically different. He is mistakenly referred to as "schizophrenic" at several points in the English translation of the game. Later events in the game reveal that he has MPD as a result of having been subjected to abusive medical experiments as a child. Fei's confrontation and integration of these personalities is a major plot feature of the game.
  • In the videogame Killer7 the main character, Harman Smith, is an old man using a wheelchair whose different personalities take their own physical forms; all of them are assassins. They each have different abilities and weapons that the player must use to progress through the game. A major aspect of the game is finding out which personality is the dominant and the original one.
  • The 1999 PlayStation game Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within by Agetek features a situation similar to the Star Trek episode "The Enemy Within".; a meek main character with a homicidal alternate personality. The player must combine the former's insight with the latter's ruthlessness to solve puzzles and to survive.
  • The Prince in Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones has an alter-ego called the Dark Prince, who constantly bickers with him about right and wrong. This split-personality theme was meant to combine the Prince's characters from the two previous incarnations of the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trilogy.
  • In the Twisted Metal series, Marcus Kane has another self known as Needles Kane.
  • The character Sakubo from .hack//GU appears to be played by two siblings, but is actually played by one person with two selves.
  • In The Suffering and its sequel, The Suffering: Ties That Bind Torque has suffered abuse since early adolescence and has several personalities. This is explored in more depth in the sequel. One of his selves assists him in fights.
  • In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Ripper Roo is a literate, civilized person co-existing with a deranged kangaroo, who is regarded as the original or core self.
  • In Crash of the Titans, Doctor N. Gin briefly develops two separate personalities after Nina Cortex takes over the role of main antagonist.
  • In Soulcalibur series, the female character Tira has two selves. In stereotypical fashion, one self is happily insane, the other angry and combative.
  • In the 2000 video game Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Alfred Ashford, one of the main antagonists for the game, shares his body with his sister Alexia.
  • In the video game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Therese Voerman created a second personality, Jeannette, after being sexually abused by her father.
  • Emil Castagnier of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World alternates between his timid, cowardly and kind self (when his eyes are green) and his aggressive, violent and arrogant self (when his eyes are red), the latter which his companions eventually dub his "Ratatosk Mode." As time goes on the personalities become more distinct and develop troubles with memory continuity and cooperation.
  • In the game Psychonauts there is a character named Fred Bonaparte, whose alternate personality is Napoleon Bonaparte. An actual descendant of the real Napoleon, easygoing Fred lived a normal life, free of war, empire building and funny hats. Somewhere deep within him, the spirit of Napoleon lay dormant, and upon waking caused various troubles for Fred.
  • In the game "Manhunt 2", the main character, Daniel Lamb, whose split personality is Leo Kasper
  • In the computer game "Women's Murder Club 3- Twice In A Blue Moon" the culprit,Richard Janus is the Alter Ego of T.C. Browning, the librarian.
  • In Mega Man Star Force, Pat Sprigs has two personalities. As Pat, he is a kind boy, but as his other personality, Rey, he is very angry and short tempered, and also is the side that responds to his FM-ian, Gemini. Pat is trying to suppress Rey forever.
  • Cloud Strife, the main character of (Final Fantasy VII), replaced his own personality and memories by those of his deceased friend Zack after suffering from many traumatic experiences.
  • In Call of Duty: Black Ops the main character Alex Mason undergoes a split in personality when he is interrupted during his brainwashing by Viktor Reznov.
  • In Deadly Premonition the main character Francis York Morgan frequently talks with his other self Zach.
  • In Fallout New Vegas in the first add on Dead Money one of the companions is a Super Mutant that frequently switches between his two personalities of Dog and God.

In music

  • Quadrophenia by British rock band The Who is about a mod named Jimmy who embodies the personalities of the band members.
  • In the song "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" by progressive metal band Dream Theater, one of the movements, titled "Losing Time", appears to describe a Sybil-like multiple.
  • "Sweating Bullets" by American heavy metal band Megadeth is about a man in an insane asylum holding conversations with multiple versions of himself.
  • "Multiple Myselves" by Violent J of the Insane Clown Posse is about Violent J's multiple personalities that are both describing themselves to the listener while at the same time arguing with themselves.
  • Brotha Lynch Hung has a song called "Split Personality" on the album Dinner and a Movie and is a diagnosed with manic-depression.
  • The album American Idiot by Green Day has many different interpretations, one of which is that Saint Jimmy's existence can be explained as that the Jesus of Suburbia has DID and that Jimmy does not really exist. "Saint Jimmy is a figment of your father's rage and your mother's love"...Letterbomb
  • The song "Lost Keys" (Blame Hoffmann) may very well be and expression of the four members of the band as an individual being, much like Jimmy (The Who), except that this time the "voices" contribute to something larger than themselves while retaining individuality rather than representing single personalities fragmented from a larger whole.
  • The song "Disassociative" by Marilyn Manson on the album "Mechanical Animals" gives a fictional take on the main characters' experiences with psychological and mental separation and disconnection with reality.


See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Dissociative identity disorder in popular culture" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools