This is the most thought-provoking article I have read in a long time:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/07/MNGGC8KQNO1.DTL

It's from the Tuesday, September 7th edition of the Chronicle and written by Julian Guthrie. Studies of schizophrenia are not so shocking any more, but it's the nature of the psychotic break that this man experienced that has me reeling and contemplative. Here's the gist, quoted directly from the Chronicle:

Brandon Staglin, national merit scholar and future astronautical engineer, was 18 when he lost half of his self. The right side, to be specific. It went away. In the blink of the eye, beat of the heart.
He spent the next week unable to sleep. He wandered the town of Lafayette, covering his right eye as he walked, fearful another personality would fill the void.[...]

"One minute, my identity was there," he said softly. "The next minute, half of my identity vanished. I walked around the house trying to call up emotions that weren't there. There was a very bright void. I remember sniffing, inhaling deeply to try to get these thoughts back into my head. I thought my soul was leaking from my head or feet. I thought I could spontaneously die."

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this since I read it. So amazing, that he could construct that -- that terror, that bizarre half-emptiness -- out of of something insubstantial, something which is immeasurable except in concept -- Identity. The idea of tangible identity, of the physicality of identity is not an altogether alien one, although most people I know don't split it into left and right. I'm sure that Mr. Staglin did not necessarily think of his personality in terms of left and right before the break; but his mind somehow grasped the concept enough to discard one half of it moments later. On a more common note, I got into a conversation with one of my friends wherein she inadvertantly pointed out a concept that I believe a lot of people share: that we have "outer layers" of identity that people have to get through, and a "core me" that most people don't get to see (with the normal exception being intimate, long-time friends and lovers). I have definitely felt myself being my "outer layers" and protecting my "core" at times -- but what IS that? Were I to experience a break in which I lost the outer layers of my identity, what would ensue -- would I be 100% candid? Would I feel paranoia towards everyone around me due to the experience of showing my naked "self"? Would I feel my body was a shell underneath which there was a hollow lining of air where my layers used to be? Would it feel cold? Conversely, who would I be if I lost my "core?" Would I be a walking fraud, an automaton? And how would I perceive these as escaping? Would I plug up my nose and ears, cover my eyes, fear the bathroom? Would I try to seal my fingernails and toenails? Would I coat my head in teflon? Would I suffocate by my own hand?

That's the funny thing -- the insistence that if I lost my "outer layers" of identity, that I could sensorily experience its loss. Perhaps the intangible mind seeks to replicate its concepts through the only tangible means it's truly familiar with -- the body, which has its outer layers (skin and muscles) and its core (the organs and bones). Thus a man can sensorily experience the physical loss of a mental construct. So strongly does he feel it, in fact, that when he experiences a (phantom) gaping emptiness with an entry way behind his right eye, he fears it being "filled" by another (now tangible, though external) personality!

So incredibly interesting. I welcome comments and further discussion.