William James used a "stream" metaphor to conceptualize the one-in-many-selves paradox. In the ensuing 100 years, seven additional distinctive metaphors have been proposed to describe how the self can be a single entity and yet have different, even contradictory parts. This article presents these metaphors and analyzes the dimensions they highlight. The authors offer a metaphor of self as a galaxy of identities, roles, and schemata that addresses the one-in-many-selves paradox more directly.
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