Relationship to Dissociated States and Self-identity

The integration of thoughtforms into psychological theory raises profound and complex questions concerning the relationship between self-identity and consciousness.  The self is usually considered to be malleable and dependent on social context. For psychologist-philosopher William James, ‘A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him’.  

Moreover, in recent research with immersive virtual reality equipment, virtual selves have been created whose identity can be manipulated and which visually appear to be located exterior to the person’s own body.  A leading proponent of this research, philosopher Thomas Metzner, concludes that the self is merely a model or construct which is created by the brain and disappears when not needed, as is clearly demonstrated when we daydream.28

The study of psychiatric patients demonstrating possession states led Alan Crabtree to a yet more radical conclusion, that the personality of a normal well-functioning individual  in fact consists of sub-personalities organized by an executive or operant self.  Where dissociated states occur, the individual’s memory has become fragmented among the sub-personalities, each of which has developed its own conscious state associated with this memory. 

Thoughtforms would occur if these entities become exteriorized and if the dissociation is experienced as being externally enforced, in which case the condition becomes one of possession.  A similar, somewhat more elaborate theory developed by Stanley Krippner takes into account the degree of integration versus dissociation and the degree of control versus flow.29

Crabtree and Krippner differ radically from  conventional philosophers and neuroscientists in accepting psi phenomena as an expression of the essential connectedness of consciousness – a form of panpsychism or extended consciousness.  Crabtree considers also the possibility of hierarchical selves, built around a supraliminal self or core consciousness, that can reincarnate and on occasion be infiltrated by memories of its former lives - or even the former lives of others.

Source: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/thoughtforms