  We study the effects of dipolar interactions on a Bose-Einstein condensate
with synthetically generated Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The dipolar
interaction we consider includes terms that couple spin and orbital angular
momentum in a way perfectly congruent with the single-particle Rashba coupling.
We show that this internal spin-orbit coupling plays a crucial role in the rich
ground-state phase diagram of the trapped condensate. In particular, we predict
the emergence of a thermodynamically stable ground state with a meron spin
configuration.
