Dissociation!... Believe it or not !!!....

Given below is an letter from a friend of mine.
"I wish to share a peculiar at the same time very intersting situation that prevailed in my village and many other neighbouring villages few dacades ago and would like to hear your comments on it.(Even now it exists,though rare My village in Calicut district had several families with some members who will attain a special mental state/different personality during our festival season.Abruptly they will start behaving as if they are strangers and wont be recognising their relatives or friends.They will give some advises and directions to people around them (they act as if they are from some other alien planets).During festival they will reach the temple and dance in front of the diety during the grand final where they are regarded as superstars..Before that they will meet important local personaliteis and communicate with them though incoherantly.They are called as Komarams and they have to observe certain strict rituals to attain that stauts.What baffle me is the actual reason for the almost complete disappearance of this band of people who used to dance, inflict self injury with iron swords and shout along with unbearable sounds of trumpets, from the villages,as nowadays people like tourists and our own locals wanted to record /shoot such performance for channels for commercial purposes or personal use .None of their children/ younger generations are exhibiting these type of behviour and are totally normal during the festival season . So it appears as a non genetic and need not be heritable problem!Is it because of the changing values of the community/influence of other cultures ,the realisation that they are no longer respected or given the devine status which they had enjoyed in plenty ,earlier?Was it altogether an artificial behaviour?or temporary ,reversible state of mind?Or was it a pure piece of acting?OR temporary split personality?"

Response to the above:
What you describe is the komaram or velichappadu (as he called in our local area). To understand this one has to know the concept of Dissociation. This particular phenomea was described and studied by Pierre Janet. He was a contemporary of Freud, though his work on dissociuation ane dates that of Freud. It is the abiity of the human mind to split itself. We know that mind has a conscious and an Unconscious part. The conscious mind is accessible to our thinking. Its contents can be recalled at will, that is if we choose to attend to them, they are within our awareness. But unconscious mind is generally not accessible by conscious attention or effort. It may reveal itself in dreams, reveries, or as elements in day dreaming, fantasy, creative thinking etc. To use the language of neuro science, the conscious mind is mostly subserved by the Cerebral cortex. The unconscious mind is largely subserved by the subcortical structures. Major structures include striatum, nucleus accumbens, globus paalidus, amygdala and many thalamic nuclei (remember the limbic system). The hypothalamus is closely interwoven into this system.
During dissociation we are able to suspend our conscious, experiencing, judging, labelling, analytical part of the mind. What remains is the primitive, emotional synthetic, (w)holistic part which experiences things in a detached manner. If you have ever had a tooth extraction you may remember the state; the dentist injects the local anesthetic, which paralyses the sensory nerves. After this he pulls at your teeth. But you dont feel the pain, only a sensation of numbness and of something pulling at something else. You are not sure that it is a part of your body that he is puling at. This is pharmacologically induced dissociation. Hypnosis can induce a similar state. One can voluntarily enter this state by auto suggestiuon or total conviction as in religiuos experiences. A similar state occurs during the 'petta thullal' at 'sabarimala', pentecostal retreats, meditation etc. A man can injure himself during this phase without feeling the pain. The descending pathways of the brain which control the relay of sensory inputs to the brain by acting on the lower motor neurones are responsible for this. Another implicated system is the endogenous opioid systtem (remembe the gate control theory of pain; opium is well known as an anesthetic and analgesic).
Altered states of mind with reuduced awareness/ hyper awareness is an interesting area. It is one of my areas of interest.
Culture shapes the way we view the external world to a very large extent. Such phenomena are rare in the so called civilised parts of the world because these are not socially sanctioned. But in the primitive cultures they are accepted and valued. Hence still prevalent.