Thought Affecting the Body (part 1)

What you think affects your body. This is pretty obvious when you are crying at a sad movie or laughing at a comedy. But, what may not be so obvious is that many, if not all, of your bodies physiologic processes are influenced by your thoughts.

There are a couple of rare psychological conditions that help to illustrate that what you are thinking affects your body. One of these conditions is called Dissociative Identity Disorder, it's also known as Multiple Personality Disorder. I'm going to call it MPD for short. This psychological problem was made famous by a 1976 movie called Sybil starring Sally Fields. This movie was actually based on a real life story of a person with MPD. It showed how people with MPD can switch personalities very quickly.


Physiological or body changes are found when a person with MPD switches from one personality to another. It is purported that people with MPD can have allergies in one personality that they don't have in another personality. Or, A person with MPD can switch from being drunk to sober or have rashes coming and going as they switch from one personality to another.


Let's look at some of the research that shows that people with MPD can experience extreme physiological changes by simply switching personalities. Dr. Bennet Braun of the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality, in Chicago, actually documented a case where a man that drank orange juice when one of his allergic personalities was in control would break out in a rash. But if he switched to his nonallergic personality, the rash would instantly start to fade and he could drink orange juice with no allergic reaction. Unfortunately, Dr. Braun had his license suspended for several years over allegations he used drugs and hypnosis to convince a patient she had killed many people in Satanic rituals. So that kind of hurts the credibility of Dr. Braun's clinical observations. Fortunately, there are other scientist who have studied MPD.


Christy Ludlow, PhD, a speech pathologist, found that the voice pattern actually changes with the different personalities of an MPD person. This is significant since it is claimed that a physiological change is recquired before voice pattern can be altered.


Birnbaum and Thomann's research published in the Journal of American Optometry Association, did an existing literature review and found - differences in dominant handedness (i.e., one personality is right-handed while another is left-handed), different response to the same medication, different allergic sensitivities, differences in autonomic and endocrine function, EEG, and regional cerebral blood flow, etc. Of course, they also noted differences in eye function. This finding is reinforced by other studies showing that eye physiology can change in people with MPD.


So we have speech pattern changes, eye changes, hand dexterity changes, responses to medication changes, allergy changes all depending on what personality is in control of the MPD person's body. It is significant that someone's physiology changes depending on their personality. Whether this is caused by hypnotic suggestion of the therapist or by extreme childhood trauma is debatable. However, the physiological changes noted are real and significant. What all this means is that what you believe and your perspective on life, all aspects of your personality, has a major determining factor on how your body functions and thus your health.


In the next article I will discuss Stigmata. Meanwhile, please share, subscribe and/or follow by e-mail this blog.