About a decade ago, I remember being fascinated by the idea of the Bicameral mind. I’m not sure how many of you folks would know what that is, so I will explain it briefly to save a bit of confusion. For those of you who know me, you’ll know why I’m so fascinated with this particular manifestation of the mind.
The theory of the bicameral mind was originally proposed by a psychologist named Julian Jaynes, and has been fairly controversial ever since.
The basic premise is that, as recently as 3,000 years ago, the brain was split in to two separate but equal sections of consciousness. One consciousness would be the “man”, or the way in which the person experiences the world. The other consciousness would be called “god”.
Instead of making conscious decisions and being aware of the thought process involved, a person of a bicameral mind would simply hear the thoughts of their split (or second) consciousness as a voice that orders and commands them to do things.
In other words, imagine having a consciousness in which you simply exist and all your thinking and beliefs goes on in a separate and unaware part that tells you how to react in certain situations. Pretty neat, huh?
It would certainly explain the fervent and mistaken belief in God and the supernatural, the talking burning bush, and pretty much everything in between.
Jaynes goes on to argue that the in ancient times, gods were much more numerous and anthropomorphic than in modern times, and simply reflected the desires of the person who listened to them. He also asserts that schizophrenia is simply a vestige of humanity’s earlier state of being.
He also states that the auditory hallucinations of a schizophrenic may be a split consciousness that may be trying to rule over the (now) sentient consciousness.
Imagine the conflict that arises in a person who has two separate awarenesses that are trying to run the show! The visual hallucinations of a schizophrenic may simply be the “imagination” of the split consciousness, that is being manifested in the only way it knows how.
It’s a pretty interesting thought. To have two “people” residing within the same mind, completely unaware of the other, but without the nastiness of the whole dissociative identity disorder.
A question immediately springs to mind, though. Say that I have two separate consciousnesses running in my mind, in parallel, but only one has any real awareness (the “I” and “me” voice in my head). What kind of awareness exists for the second consciousness?
Does it only perceive and accept input from the outside world via whatever pathways exist between it and the primary consciousness? Or is it simply sitting in the dark without any memory or perception of anything? Would it be equivalent to forever living in a dissociative fugue?
That could explain why so many schizophrenics are so tortured by voices and hallucinations. If you have a “person” who is forever left in the dark, with no sound, no voice, and no way to scratch a way out of their prison, how could you compare them to anything but a child? A monster?
Anyway, I don’t know why I was thinking about this today, but I figured I would share.