Dissociative Disorders & Murakami

        After class on Friday, I could not stop thinking about how different types of dissociative disorders could explain some of the enigmatic features of Murakami's stories. Verywellmind.com defines dissociation as "a disconnection between a person's sensory experience, thoughts, sense of self, or personal history. People may feel a sense of unreality and lose their connection to time, place, and identity." There are multiple types of dissociative disorders, a couple of which I will discuss in two of Murakami's short stories.

    The discussion we had on Friday concerning Miu in "Sputnik Sweetheart" reminded me of a condition called depersonalization. Healthyplace.com describes depersonalization as a "feeling that one is detached from one's own life and mental processes or that one is viewing one's life as if it were a movie." As we know in the short story, Miu shares her experience of watching herself in her apartment with Ferdinando. I learned from a class last semester called "Abnormal Behavior" that depersonalization often occurs when people are experiencing, or have experienced in the past, a traumatic event. Clearly, this event left Miu traumatized since she kept this secret for over a decade and it caused her hair to turn white.

    Another short story we read that could describe yet another type of dissociative disorder is "Where I'm Likely to Find It." In this story, the protagonist is looking for a husband that went missing. At the end of the story, the wife calls the protagonist to inform him that her husband was found in another city, with no memory of how he got there. This situation is eerily similar to a condition known as dissociative fugue. Healthyplace.com describes dissociative fugue as a dissociative amnesia that "is associated with confused and bewildered wandering or a journey of some sort." Again, I learned about this condition in the class "Abnormal Behavior" and it was mentioned that in dissociative fugue, a person leaves unexpectedly and travels to another place, typically without telling other people that they are leaving. When they leave their dissociated state, they have no memory of how they got there or why they left.

    There are more examples I could discuss concerning other stories by Murakami and other dissociative disorders, but I found these two to be the most interesting. I'm not sure if Murakami knew of these disorders and intentionally wrote them in because of their unique characteristics, or if it was a coincidence. Either way, I found this very intriguing.

Works Cited

Matthew Tull, P. (2020, July 19). What does dissociation mean? Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.verywellmind.com/dissociation-2797292

Tracy, N. (2015). Types of dissociative disorders, list of dissociative disorders. Retrieved February 27, 2021, from https://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/dissociative-identity-disorder/dissociative-disorders-types-list

Corrina