personality
We don’t have a really good working definition of personality. We need one. Seriously, we need something bigger than Myer-Briggs and the personality test employed to determine eligibility to hire people. I am reasonably smart. I am extremely compassionate. I am competent at my job. I am loyal. I get along well with others. I worked at American Airlines for 24 years. I worked at Glen Oaks Hospital for a year, transferred to Timberlawn and was there for a year when it shut down by the state. I have worked at MHMRTC since, just over four years on writing this. I have considered going back to AA, but to do so, I had to take their personality test. My file says I am re-hirable, but after the test- no call back. I wanted to work JPS hospital- to get hired you are required to take a personality test. If you don’t score the right number, you won’t get an interview. This is not just speculation: I dated a person who worked at JPS. She was HR, in charge of hiring. They can only interview people that have passed the test. Even more interestingly, if you were hired prior to the implementation of this policy and you are wanting to apply for another position, laterally or vertically, you have to take the test- if you don’t take the test, you won’t be considered. If you take the test and don’t meet the criteria you’re looking for, you won’t move. At one time, HR person I dated said there was flexibility, and she could still interview people and make decision, and frequently hired people that did not meet the personality test desired criteria. The company that runs the instrument would write saying, we cannot recommend said person based on their indicators. Person turned out to be a good employee, and is well liked by peers and clients. Hospital policy changed taking discernment out of the hands of HR- if they don’t meet criteria, they won’t be hired.
Interestingly, more and more organizations are using personality filters to higher, and more and companies are also lamenting not finding good, loyal staff- people with work ethics that can put their cell phones down long enough to do their jobs. Also, perhaps not even a correlation to the test, work place violence in the US has gone up. Of course nothing happens in vacuum. We have multiple societal influencers in play and we as a nation, likely as a world, are headed for a major change.
When I talk about personality, and that we need to know more, I am suggesting this is bigger than metrics designed to discover if you’re introverted or not. If you accept the thing neurologist are saying, ‘we are not who we think we are,’ then you are also not your personality.
It is my contention you are not your brain. I am adamant about that, but for the sake argument let’s say you are- you are your brain, but you are not the personality, or the “I” that you think you are. I do believe there is a correlation between brain activity and life outcomes, but correlation is not causation. Scientist do like that phrase. If a change in gut bacteria changes memory, there could be a change in personality. Memory is not personality. It plays a part in personality. History isn’t personality, but it does influence life outcomes. We don’t live in a vacuum, and we don’t happen in a vacuum.
One of the things that I am particularly interested in with neuroscience is that there is clear evidence that brain regions appear to come together in a modular way, and each module could be considered an entity in and of itself. Agent might be better than the word entity. I am using it loosely and interchangeably. Gazzaniga, I love hate him, talks about modules and that there appears to be an executive module that makes the final decisions. There is a parallel with this in psychology, going back to Freud who proposed pre personality constructs. Jung takes it further and suggests there are other sub personalities, even full-fledged personalities, just underneath the surface of you. He went further and said they are sentient in their own right, archetypes if you will, underlying all our decision-making process. Maybe the proverbial angel and devil on our shoulder is not as metaphorical as we like to think. We have two programs to delineate between the pros and cons of all choices. And how many choices do you make that are really distinctly ‘good vs. bad,’ but rather are between ‘bad and a little less bad.’ The lesser of two evils is still evil.
There is a thing called multiple personality disorder. It is no longer called that, but most people still know that term. It’s now DID, or Dissociative identity disorder. I don’t think it’s a disorder. It has functionality. Having it could, and frequently does, result in decreased ability to function within mainstream society. It’s related to trauma- trauma can result in DID. There is a correlation between people experiencing trauma and becoming psychic, or becoming Shamans. For people that are in a position where they being victimized on a schedule, DID is very functional- it helps them log out. One of the patients of a dentist of mine was a Vietnam vet. He likely had this- he could go in and tune out, and would instruct the doctor to just tap on his shoulder and he would come back. He could sit through a root canal without anesthetics. In that sense, DID is super functional. Give me that. Seriously, I am so hyper-aroused during Dentist visits that I have to hold the chair like cat trying to get thrown into the ocean. Laughing gas doesn’t work. The doctor has to give me multiple shots before I am ‘numb’ enough to proceed. Having never liked, tolerated well the Dentist doesn’t mean I was abducted, but by God, if the aliens have to deal with that with me every time the pull me up- then they’re likely having to knock me the fuck out.
Assume for a moment that Gazzaniga, and most neuro scientists, are right, we are not who we think we are, and who we think we are is a hallucination that is uploaded into a brain space we label conscious experience. This is the equivalent of a virtual memory space. The personality you think you are is, for a lack of a better term, an avatar that is running around in a simulated mockup of the outside world. You are, by definition, the ultimate DID experience.
You are the dream of the dreamer. Maybe the being who you really are is learning vicariously through your perspective the way we learn vicariously through dreams and or stories. You are not in charge. You are the designated experiencer. If the brain is divided into functioning modules, why wouldn’t the personality also be comprised of functioning modules? Same above, same below.
You experience running around in the real world, but in truth, you’re running around in a virtual world that resembles the real world. This is Plato’s cave. You never have all the information, because you have filters eliminating perceived unnecessary data. It may not be unnecessary. Sometimes we only see what is necessary to reinforce the paradigm we live in. Consistency is, after all, comforting. Also, your brain makes short cuts and gives you information that is simply inaccurate or faulty. We are no better than Julodimorpha bakewelli, the Australian beetle that was mistaking beer bottles for a suitable sexual partner. Beetles are not the only ones fooled. Seriously, processed sugars are killers and we love them. Cheetoes have the color that says ‘this is healthy,’ and it has a crunch that screams ‘this is healthy’ and we will eat ourselves sick… Okay, I will. Maybe not everyone. Some personalities won’t engage bad food. Some won’t eat meat. Variety in diet is not evidence for conscious choice, based on the explanation for how the brain works.
There is evidence for there not being one, over all guiding personality, but that there are personality fragments that come together. A variety of things might alter the call and response. Mood, for example. Context is also a huge factor. Seriously, even mentally ill people can exercise discernment. I can’t tell you how many times a person was acting the fool and the moment law enforcement shows up to haul their ass to jail, their behavior become instantly more appropriate. Hospital stay is always more pleasant than jail. Most people also tend to have more discernment in a courtroom in front of a judge than outside of court. Context is huge. There are some places that are appropriate to cry. We’re more likely to forgive a child for crying than an adult, regardless of circumstances. We are more likely to give a female a pass on crying, as opposed to a male. The latter is a social influence and not necessarily personality traits per say, except for we have a socialized norm which we adopt and wear, and so personality has flavors based on society and family norms. It’s even more complicated than this. From a family systems perspective, families assigned roles, and members adopt roles. Stepping out of an assumed or accepted role leads to discord, which either brings person back in line with their assigned scripts, or family blows up.
I think there is a core personality, one that rules them all. The personality interface you interact with, ‘the me’ that I think is me, and that you think is me, is that personality. Sometimes the personality “I’ think I am aligns with the ‘me’ you think I am. Not always. I am more likely to be a little different at work than at home. Not much. I have worn a good number of hats, but I have also gone out of my way to be as real as I can most the time, so there is a thread of me in everything. I have discernment. I know when I need the more professional me to come forwards. I am a flibbertigibbet. I can talk too much. This is not just psychological. There’s what, 40 trillion living cells in the body. The ‘I’ I think I am is dependent on those folks! ‘I’ can’t exist without all of them- sometimes my eyes and stomach fight over what is an acceptable portion. Some of these cells are mine, tied by genetics. Some are foreign invaders. Some live synergistically with me, symbiotically- and they are as close to me as you can get without being me. Maybe you have heard you can’t walk into a room without leaving something, or leave a room without taking something. We are enmeshed in our physical and social environments. Your personal cloud of cell debris field, the flora and fauna and sloth cells dead and alive and fragments of you, is so distinctly you, think Pig Pen from Charlie Brown, that it is a better gauge of you and your health than your fingerprint. Your primary personality interface is comprised of other personalities, full and partials and abstracts. Everything is one. I am connected to all of me, and we are also equally all connected.
I tell you that the above is true; translation, I have no doubt that my core personality interface is not me, but it is the primary way I relate to the totality of intelligence coming together to relate to self, world, and others. There is a bigger me, and I don’t know how to define it. Freud called it Super Ego. Some use the word spirit guide. Some just say it’s the subconscious. Medium doesn’t capture it either. I, comparatively, am a gold fish, and the subconscious is the water, and the bowl is something else, but all together we are that. I have been trying to find a name for it. ‘Subconscious mind’ is not working for me. (Sub does not denote inferior, but ‘sub’ bothers me. Submarine doesn’t bother me- it’s just a boat that goes underwater, but sub conscious does.) I know too much about hypnosis and unconscious motivators to accept that my ‘core’ me is the only one present. I also know that I deal with childhood trauma, and every now and then, that kid comes out. An emotional response is usually someone else stepping up, but this is not DID. That tends to be true for most of us. Any response that is exaggerated and out of proportion to the stimulus is likely a response to a past event, not the present event. I have not been diagnosed with DID or PTSD. Looking back, through a self- diagnostic lens, I suspect a past a trauma-based diagnosis would explain my MH outcomes. It is my opinion, when a person self-diagnoses- what they come up with is inevitably not the thing. (Oh, an argument against aliens. Ha!)
I am not who I think I am. I am not my brain, my body, or my history. Those are influencers only. I am also not alone. Anthony Peake writes about ‘the Daemon.’ Most of his books iterate what he believes about the Daemon. I have experienced such, and I tried to start a correspondence with him, but failed to establish rapport, likely because he thought I was insane, as opposed to just super enthusiastic. Maybe I am insane. Robert Wagoner did exchange correspondence with me. I wrote him directly after reading “Lucid Dreaming: gateways to the inner self,” specifically because of his mention of the Blue Light. I have experienced that. (Is that the water/sky we are immersed in?) I recommend his and Peaks books. But Wagoner because I share this: I am not the me I think I am. I believe this because when I am lucid dreaming, I am inside an internal environment that is indistinguishable from the real world. By all accounts, the dream world- everything in it is me, the people, the table, the floor, the air- all of it. At times it is realer than real. I have influence over this world, but I am not in charge. I do not have 100 percent control- ever. (If I interpret Gazzainga correctly, that’s also true for real, waking life. (I wish we had a term other than ‘real’ life.)) Quoting Wagoner loosely, “I am in a boat on a seat and I can adjust the sails and the rudder, but I am not in charge of the ocean or the wind…” When I experience dream characters, they are never two dimensional. They are solid personalities and I have chosen to contend with them as if they were sentient. Treat everyone as if they were you pretending to be other, because you never know if this is the dream, or the other.
There is a bigger me that responds to me. An Other. Not God. Companion? I don’t know. I have been exploring this. Trying to understand it. In my search, I came across tulpas. I engaged the protocols and discovered in the process that my brain can hold two very distinct and separate, sentient personalities. The ‘John’ me is sentient. The new personality is sentient; her name is Loxy. The inner me, the core me, is super sentient, and she and I exist in context to that greater self. It knows things I don’t. I suspect it has my best interest at heart, but that doesn’t mean it won’t capitulate to what the ‘I’ thinks it want so that we can learn together how what the “I’ wants isn’t always the best choice.
Let try to restate that. I don’t believe in WILL POWER. If given a choice between cookies and chips, I will choose chips. I will never first buy sweets. I want salt and spicy. Put a cookie on my table. I will ignore it the first time I pass. Maybe the second time. I will not ignore it forever. There is a part of my brain or personality that so abhors wasting food, I will eventually eat it just because it’s going to get thrown away. If I am depressed, I am more likely to eat a box of Oreos and ice-cream and I will eat till I am sick. If it’s in the house, and I am depressed, I will eat it. If it’s not in the house, and I get depressed, I won’t go and buy it, because I usually don’t go out at that time.
We self-sabotage all the time, but ‘self-sabotage’ is a term that is only applicable from the ‘I’ self, not from the subconscious companion’s perspective. Our job, as human beings, is to become aware and awake all the time. Well, that’s my belief. Your unconscious will intentionally trip you up and you will ask, ‘why did I do that?’ You didn’t. Subconscious did because it wants you to slow and take inventory and likely do something different.
Hypothetically, if I counsel someone who has had multiple past abusive relationships, and they come to me and they lament, “Why do I always pick the wrong partners?!” I would say, ‘you have never chosen a partner.’ Gazzaniga is right, we don’t choose. In that instant, that is dead on. I take this said person to a bar, line up every person in the bar, and that person go down the line and just point to the ones they like. Exercise done, the people she pointed to come forwards, the others go home. Most likely, the people they picked will have a high propensity for being abusive. This is not a hundred percent. Even people who are abusive in one relationship are not always abusive in other relationships. (People aren’t bad all the time, in all circumstance, with all people. Even bad guys have dogs. Their dogs love them. That’s hopeful!) There are complicated dynamics within people and there is unspoken dialogue going between us all the time. The people that went home in this exercise didn’t even register on my client’s radar. They’re boring, or they smell funny, or any number of reasons why the person reports not being interested. The truth is- unconscious saw something that resembled a past relationship and emphasized that, making the unwanted attractive. We will repeat lessons until we get it. That’s it. ‘Love at first sight’ is the worst indicator of potential future relationship, but it is perfect if the goal is to grow and learn… Statistically, we’re likely to marry the parent we had the most difficulties with, to work out past relationship issues vicariously through others in our life.
What you ignore, the brain amplifies over time. Brain will win, even if it kills you.
If I go to a hypnotist, they get the ‘I’ that I think I am out of the way and talk to the other person, the guy behind the curtain we’ve been told to ignore all our life. That was not an accident in the wizard of Oz. By the way, did you know Frank dreamt the Wizard of Oz? You know how many books came from dreams? Or from inspiration? You know how many scientists, authors, musicians report ‘I didn’t do this, it was given to me…” The ‘I’ I am lives in a simulator, the brain. This is not simulation theory, but maybe it relates. We are an avatar on a virtual map and we are playing out the scenarios of something else so it can determine outcomes vicariously through us.
Hypothetically, I can see this as an explanation for aliens. All experiences could be relating to a form of unconscious expression, which is what Jung actually wrote about. This is not my preferred interpretation. Could it be that some people have real alien encounters and some of us have psychologically induced encounters? This does not mean I am saying one is less real than the other. The brain cannot distinguish between a real invent and an imagine one. Science gave us that. Just knowing that science agrees on that fact, science and skeptics both should be more compassionate and willing to listen to alien encounters because it’s still real in its affect.
Everybody you have ever met, fiction, nonfiction, if you saw them, heard their voice- they are ever present in your mind. You brain is a personality simulator. Napoleon Hill, author of ‘Think and Grow Rich,” in that very book, talks about ‘the invisible counselor technique.’ He invited particular personalities to come to him and provide insight. He reports they came, and they gave him insights into things he believed he didn’t have the answer to. Tulpas existed before Hill, in Tibet, but he probably didn’t know about them. Carl Jung may or may not have known about Tulpas, but he did know there were things his brain could do that were inexplicable. I suspect Philemon was a Tulpa. Or maybe his Daemon. I don’t know, but the Redbook seems connected to Tulpas and Hill’s Invisible counselors. Maybe people who see spirits or angels are actually seeing Tulpas. There is evidence, anecdotal, that some people have an easier time accessing tulpamancy than others. The protocols work, I will attest to that.
I get irritated when I hear online PhD pontificating about Jung’s “Active Imagination” and they state, “Well, it’s internal and open to introspection and subjective interpretation.” That isn’t what Jung states. It is my opinion, any person who makes that statement has failed to understand what Jung was communicating in terms of ‘Active Imagination.’ Tulpas are real and sentient. Philemon was real. Jung self-induced other hallucinations. At one point he was seriously concerned for his own mental health. His family’s estate sat on the Red Book thinking it would tarnish his reputation as a scientist and academic.
Tulpas coexist simultaneously with the host personality, and they can be just as determined as the original ‘host.’ I am going a step further and saying the ‘host’ personality, the ‘I’ that I think I am is not in charge. You can go places in your mind, you, your avatar, the ‘I’ you think you are, and have encounters of other places and beings that are as ever real as anyone else you have ever known. You can actually induce hallucinations without drugs. Active Imagination can result in very real experience indistinguishable from anything else. Jung was very clear on that, and he recommend not run. He also recommended don’t analyses the thing in the moment; confront first, consider the ramifications in the quiet after the storm. Ask the hallucination what its name is. Hold your ground, and it will change. It has no choice. It always changes. You run, it chaces, gets bigger. You run, dog chases. Hold your ground or advance, and it retreats- more often than not. Either way, you’re not out running a dog. Hold your ground. Jung was not ambiguous about this. He was ambiguous about how to achieve ‘active imagination;’ he didn’t leave a specific protocol. Or perhaps, he did but the family is sitting on that. Sure if he gave this to clients to help them, there is a protocol somewhere.
Tulpamancy has a protocol. Invisible Counselor Technique has a protocol. The latter didn’t work for me, maybe because of context, or where I was in my emotional maturity, or other confounding things I have not considered. Tulpamancy worked for me. Invisible Counselor Technique worked for me after I discovered tulpamancy.
And here is the most important reason why you need to know who you really are. The core experience of alien interaction is telepathic in nature. They are not engaging the you that you think you are. They’re engaging the real you. People complain all the time, ‘I didn’t ask for this. I don’t like being abducted and experimented on and it’s not right…” I have read more than one account where aliens stated, “they agreed to this, or we wouldn’t be here.” Your core you knows something you don’t know, and the aliens know something we don’t know, and it is my opinion they are here to help us.
The greater the clarity on who you are, the greater the clarity in communication with alien will be.
Think of this way. Ever have a nightmare? The ‘you’ you think you are woke up afraid, heart racing. The core you gave you that information in such a way you would not doubt. It got your attention. You wake up afraid, and maybe asking ‘what the hell.’ Maybe you ask, why would my core self-scare me? Well, your core you starts off subtly. If you don’t hear it, it turns up the volume. Eventually, it is screaming at you, maybe even angry with you, ‘you need to hear this. Wake up!’ Now, you wake up, it has your attention. What do most of us do? We blow it off, go back to sleep. A friend says you have a drinking problem. You blow them off. You get a DWI. Oh, I was at the bar, and it was a trap. Okay. Maybe. Spouse leaves. CPS involvement? Second DWI. How many wake up calls and come to jesus meetings does it take before you think, ‘oh, maybe there is something to this.’ Maybe drinking isn’t the core issue. Maybe its past trauma that you never dealt with.
If you know who you are, you will pause at scary and say, oh, I am dreaming, what does this mean, nightmare is no longer a nightmare- it’s the transmission of knowledge. Alien encounters are scary, but if I know who I am, I can clearly intuit they are people that want to connect with us and understand us. Hell, isn’t that what we all want? That’s something we can relate to.
Trauma can haunt you. It’s a ticking time bomb. But you, the core you, is not Keanu Reaves. You’re not getting Sandra Bullock off the bus. You have to sit there and hear the bomb. You don’t like the bomb. You do one of two things: 1 find or create a drama. This is like magic. It’s not magic. Drama will find you if you don’t go looking for it, and the reason is the brain can’t do two things at once. It has to listen to the noise of the bomb or deal with the drama.
Dinosaur trumps the bomb. If you’re going to get eaten, bomb is irrelevant. You get away from the drama, or settle it, go home and you say, yay, finally I can have some peace. The brain celebrates with you! Yay. Now, do something about this damn bomb.
2: substance dependence. You are not your brain. You are not your subconscious. You are the ‘I’ in the simulated paradise and that the bomb noise was uploaded to you. Bomb noise is anxiety.
You cover your ears. Bomb noise recedes. The brain says, I know there is still a bomb here. Brain turns up the volume. So, plugging ear no longer works. You turn to substance. ETOH, alcohol, it’s a depressant. It brings the noise down. Brain is confused. I know there was bomb here. It turns up the volume level. You drink more. Maybe you pass out. Alcohol induced sleep is not sleep, it is knocked out. You get an operation and wake up groggy, because you didn’t go to sleep, you got knocked out! You can drink enough to kill you in one sitting. Most people don’t get to that point. Life either blows up due to the quantity of ETOH being consumed, or it is so ineffective of quieting noise we change substance. Xanax is great for killing that inner noise.
Two things happen. Brain turns up the volume because it wants you to deal with the noise, and your body become immune to the dose, so it takes greater levels of Xanax to do the same job. That is true most of the time. Most people get Xanax from their primary care. Dosage increased over time because all we are doing is putting bandaid on, not addressing the source- the bomb! At a certain dosage, PCP says you need a psychiatrist I can no longer write you this script, and cold turkeys you. Now you’re in crisis!
Crisis never happen. We make them. You don’t wake up randomly from COPD. You could. But most likely, you smoked your way there. At one point, you might have had a cough. Warning? How many warnings did you need to quit smoking? Worth repeating: What you ignore, the brain amplifies over time. It will win, even if it kills you. What you resist, persists…
But aliens are different you might think. Umm, how many times have we been told we’re destroying the planet? If your inner won’t intervene in your behavior and stop you from smoking or eating badly or never exercising, why should the aliens help us? Maybe we should learn to help ourselves. Our bodies, our minds, they’re programed for healing. They won’t force it, and it won’t happen because we do nothing and let them take over. It is a participatory event.
Aliens are a participatory event. We are invited to join them in making ourselves, our neighborhoods, and our planet a safer, happier place. Not paradise. But paradise enough we’re not killing ourselves or others. We keep the nest, the sandbox alive so we can thrive and fellow plants and animals and others can thrive. We’re a package deal, it’s all of us or none of us. It all of nature, or seriously impoverished life.
We share this space, physically, mentally, and emotionally. We can’t not share it. We’re all connected. There is a telepathic thread running through us all and everything, and if you don’t believe that, consider a family system’s therapy example. A family of adults and kids, they’re all linked. Dad is angry, but he knows how to suppress it. Where does it go? Imagine everyone in the family is connected by water hoses. Emotions flow like water from one vessel to another.
Dad pushes down on his anger, suppresses it, it goes to the first link, probably the wife due to longevity of relationships. But she is an adult, she blocks it. Unconsciously, or maybe even directly, “I don’t need this right now,’ and so she blocks. No water in. But now, she’s a little miffed, and she is suppressing her own stuff. More water flowing! Kids get it. They younger they are, the less likely they have the ability to block. They start acting out. They don’t know why.
They’re feeling stuff, or they recognize parents are out of sorts, and kids are smart enough to know how manipulate systems, so they take your stuff and convert to action, and suddenly you’re no longer mad for the reasons you thought you were mad. Now you’re yelling at the kids to bring it down a level… (If you actually use that word, consider you were squashing your own inner level of noise and got a corresponding increase in external noise.) Maybe that’s not telepathy, but you’re not going to convince a systems therapist that we’re not all connected. Family’s are like mobiles. Change the weight of one piece, the whole mobile changes. It has to, by definition. It will resist, but it will eventually flip to new configuration, a new balance. That’s why therapy of one can result in family change. Family therapy works better. I hate doing children’s therapy. I love kids. I thought for sure I end up working wwith kids, but kids are hard! Not because I can’t connect or get it, but because every time I gain ground- I send them back to their family or origin where their behaviors were actually functional. You want to change kids, therepatize the parents. Get them straight, most the time the rest of the family falls in line. Kids learn and emulate the parents. Most kids aren’t broken. Parents are.
Families have personalities. It’s usually a gestalt of all the active personalities. Organizations, even companies, have personalities. Hell, corporations were granted rights as a person. (Don’t tax my tulpa.) Same above, same below. Humanity as a whole as a personality. It is my opinion- humanity on the whole has tremendous value and potential. Most of us are good people most the time. Who knows- maybe that’s why we’re still here.
♫♪►
I ramble a little, and I want to make sure this part of my idea of personality is clear. I am operating from the perspective that there are at least two personalities. There is the subconscious mind, I am treating as an entity in itself. As submarine is a boat that navigates underneath the surface, the unconscious mind navigates below the surface- and is more potent because it is primary. For the sake of argument, if you accept that premise, it helps us understand why children are more likely to have invisible friends, see ghosts, see things that adults don’t see, and have experiences like out of body experience. All of this stuff seems to fade away as t