Is Plurality a Delusion?
Morgan/sourcer/antitheist? (host) (he/him) | posted 22.03.2025 | translated 11.10.2026
Many beliefs held by our community are considered delusions. And not only by people who know nothing about plurality nor delusions and simply think that there is something wrong with us. Most of the professional community views our claims about the presence of other consciousnesses/people in the same body, as well as claims such as being of a different gender or species than the body, as delusions. They consider them as beliefs that we needed in order to survive trauma, but which are objectively and unequivocally false. I believe that this approach is largely unjustified. But before I present my arguments, it would be worth explaining what exactly is a delusion.
There are many definitions of delusion in psychological literature. They differ in certain details, and depending on which one we choose, our assessment of a particular belief as delusional could also differ. But, in my opinion, not significantly enough to compare them here. I decided to base my analysis on the definition from ICD-11, because this classification will be generally used to diagnose delusions in Poland. Here it is:
A belief that is demonstrably untrue or not shared by others, usually based on incorrect inference about external reality. The belief is firmly held with conviction and is not, or is only briefly, susceptible to modification by experience or evidence that contradicts it. The belief is not ordinarily accepted by other members or the person's culture or subculture (i.e., it is not an article of religious faith).[1] [end of definition]
I find this addition of "i.e., it is not an article of religious faith" a bit confusing. Perhaps exploring the topic of delusions more deeply, which I intend to do in preparation for writing about differentiating DID/OSDD-1 from psychotic disorders, will help me understand this issue a little better. In any case, it does not mean that every religious belief is protected from the stigmatising label of delusion. This only applies to beliefs shared by the person's religious group, while the others are classified as religious delusions[2]. So, if you believe that God has chosen you to fulfill a special purpose (one of the most common examples of a religious delusion), it will probably be considered a delusion if you attend a Catholic church. But not so, if you belong to an evangelical community that will gladly support you in your mission with their prayer (the question remains, how are classified beliefs of people who do not attend any church). Secondly, I don't think that all non-delusional beliefs are necessarily religious in nature. In our culture, believing in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy is completely normal for children, and nobody will diagnose them with a delusion because of it, even though these concepts are not religious. Unless I have a very different definition of religion than the people who created these criteria.
Delusions are often equated with schizophrenia, but although they are indeed characteristic of psychotic disorders, they can also occur in other contexts, for example in depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia or dementia. Having certain delusional beliefs is also common in the general population, especially among people living in more difficult circumstances. The difference between this and delusional disorder lies in the degree of psychological distress, preoccupation with the belief and conviction of its authenticity.[3] So, as in many other cases, whether you receive a stigmatising label depends to some extent on the psychologist you happen to encounter.
So now that we have explained what a delusion is and, hopefully, why it is not all that different from phenomena that society considers normal, we can move on to analysing how it relates to plurality. Just to be clear, it is not my intention to suggest that plural people cannot have delusions at all. I am convinced that most of us have certain delusional beliefs – just like the rest of society.
Right at the start, we can exclude many spiritual systems from our analysis. In mediumship or evangelical Christianity, plurality is understood through the lens of the religion, in a way that is not only accepted but fundamental within these cultural circles. This leaves us with systems that consider plurality a purely neurobiological phenomenon, as well as those that hold less common beliefs about their experiences (which I will discuss later on).
It is clear that many plural people firmly hold on to our beliefs, but the degree to which we hold them depends on the particular belief and headmate, and it seems to me that in many cases it is not delusional at all. Doubts are very common in the community, and it is much rarer to encounter people who are one hundred percent certain that their headmates are conscious and genuinely separate people than people who are only certain that a particular thought or bodily movement did not originate from them (which does not require another conscious being, after all – see intrusive thoughts and Tourette's syndrome). It may not be particularly obvious from the outside, but I have also had a lot of doubts, and I still sometimes doubt whether I am right about all of this. Besides, some plural people, who were also raised in a singlet-normative society, willingly agree with the narrative imposed on us. This leaves us with only a fraction of the community that meets the part of the criteria stating that "the belief is firmly held with conviction". I don't know how much of an impact this has on meeting the criteria, though, because despite our doubts, most of us generally stick to our beliefs, so it is difficult to talk about being susceptible to modification.
Now we come to the part about the belief being "clearly false". Of course, most people think that this issue is obvious. But their beliefs are based on unconfirmed assumptions. The fact that most people once considered it obvious that the Sun revolves around the Earth does not mean that it was true. As far as consciousness is concerned, the existence of multiple consciousnesses in one brain is entirely possible if each headmate has their own dynamic core[4]. It even seems that this phenomenon is not limited to plurality, but occurs to some extent in everybody during sleep, as demonstrated by studies of dream characters involving lucid dreamers (although these consciousnesses are somewhat different from ours)[5]. Of course, consciousness cannot be proven in any way, but if someone behaves like a conscious being, it is logical to assume that they possess consciousness. And even if you disagree with me on this point, the issue still falls into the category of something potentially possible, rather than something clearly false. Perhaps future technology will allow us to prove or disprove in some way that we can experience the world in different ways or have different thoughts at the same time while sharing the same body, but for now, this belief cannot be classified as a delusion on the grounds of its alleged untrueness. Although it is worth mentioning here that claiming the existence of multiple consciousnesses does not mean claiming that headmates can be completely free from the limitations of the brain or body. The latter concerns something physically impossible and may indeed be delusional in nature.
Now for the second aspect, the presence of multiple people in one body – because consciousness alone is not enough to qualify as a person, as can be seen from the fact that we generally do not include other animals in this definition. And on this issue, we rarely receive anything beyond "it's impossible", which is hardly an argument at all. Philosophers have pointed out that the debate about what a person is has not yet been resolved, so no judgement can be made on this matter.[6][7] Personally, I believe that there is no absolute truth on this subject, just as there is none when it comes to gender, race or species. Words only mean what we assign to them, and their meaning changes over time (did you know that several centuries ago, the [Polish] word "woman" was an insult?) and depending on the context (according to the biological definition, cucumber, tomato and zucchini are not only fruits, but also berries, yet no professional working in this field expects to find them in a fruit salad), and even from person to person (I personally consider the desire to kiss someone to be a form of sexual attraction, so I was very surprised to learn that most people consider this act purely romantic). All we can do is try to show others that their definitions are not based on what they claim they are based on: "Do conjoined twins count as one person to you because they share a body? Do Gandalf, Sherlock Holmes, Katniss Everdeen and Percy Jackson count as people to you? You should answer no, because they are fictional, they have no body at all, let alone a body exclusively their own. Oh, but they have their own bodies in the universes of those stories! So do we, in our innerworlds, so why do you take into account only our physical body in this case?", "Are Barbie and Ken, Lightning McQueen and Sally, WALL-E and EVE same-sex couples? You should answer yes, because they have neither genitals nor chromosomes, so they are all agender." This way, we can convince some people to revise their definitions, but ultimately it requires making some changes to their worldview, which a certain part of society will never make. But even so, it cannot be said that either side's position is clearly false. We can argue about whether a fabric somewhere between two colours is green or blue, but neither of us owns the absolute truth – objectively, the only thing that exists is the wavelength of light reflected by that material.
So we cannot say that "the belief is clearly false". But the first criterion has an alternative condition as well, which our plural beliefs undeniably meet. Whether we are right or not, society definitely does not share our point of view at the moment. And there is nothing we can do about that (although it is worth noting that the DSM criteria do not include this condition). But here we get help in the form of the exclusion of beliefs accepted within particular cultural circles from the category of delusions. Just as transgender beliefs may not be accepted by society at large, but are widely accepted as facts in leftist communities, plural beliefs are recognised in plural communities and many of the LGBT+ spaces. In the same way, many systems with unusual supernatural beliefs may avoid being classified as delusional because, although they are less common in wider society, some of them are very popular in the plural community (mainly alternate universes, reincarnation and harmless possession). But what about systems that do not belong to any plural community that shares their views? Well, according to the criteria, their beliefs shall then be delusions (provided they are sufficiently intense). But the remedy for this is very simple – all you have to do is join a group of people with a similar worldview (or find some people who consider yours worth accepting – this is how many religions that are considered mainstream today came into existence, after all). I am being sarcastic here; in practice, I think that diagnosing unusual beliefs that do not harm anyone as delusions depends to a large extent on the general religious tolerance of the psychiatrist. I have interpreted the criteria quite literally here, but the delusions described in the literature seem to follow additional rules that my autistic mind cannot understand – I have seen it described as a delusion many times when someone believes that the government is monitoring them or that they are an important historical figure, but never when someone believes that the Earth is flat or that aliens built the pyramids. But perhaps this is because my knowledge of the subject is still limited.
Some of you may have sensed my critical attitude towards making the criteria dependent on social acceptance rather than the harm caused. On the one hand, I can somewhat understand this approach, because psychology deals with treating individuals rather than entire social groups. But as a person who has experienced religious trauma, I believe that the power of a particular religion should not matter when trying to help someone free themselves from toxic beliefs. Even if almost an entire country lives in constant fear of the coming end of the world because of its religion, I consider the whole society ill and in need of help, rather than the small fraction of people who disagree with these beliefs. I suspect that these criteria were shaped by a reluctance to offend religious people, who are often unaware of the impact that teachings about hell or original sin have on their mental health (especially if some of the people who created the criteria had themselves been part of a toxic religion). What saddens me about this is that nobody seems to care about offending people with psychosis in this case. This demonstrates the social stigmatisation and prejudice against these disorders. While reading this, maybe you have noticed how much you want to receive confirmation that your beliefs are not delusions – these feelings certainly also apply to most people who have been diagnosed with delusions. A belief is neutral, harmless or positive, while a delusion is a symptom, something negative that needs to be eliminated, regardless of the opinion of the person who holds it. In practice, deeply held beliefs can be extremely important to anyone, regardless of what they concern, whether they are true, how many people share them and whether they meet the criteria established by humans to put them into a stigmatising category created by humans. Just as with religion, some delusions may serve an adaptive function, even if they also cause harm to the person, and may become such an important part of their identity that trying to (even with good intentions) pull them away from these beliefs will inevitably be painful for them[8][9]. Personally, I have had several delusional beliefs about our plurality in the past (such as that our brain is capable of simulating complex lives for several hundred people simultaneously or that my headmates are not affected by my autistic symptoms), which I desperately needed until I was ready to deal with reality without their help. When someone challenged them, it probably hurt even more than when someone denied the existence of God back when I was still a believer. And I understand this approach, because I always prioritise science on my website, but it frustrates me greatly when someone unsolicitedly gives arguments against such beliefs, but never does the same with religious beliefs.
So even if you forget everything else from this article, I hope you will at least take away the idea that having delusions does not make anyone a worse or less intelligent person, and that religious and delusional beliefs deserve to be treated with the same respect and the same sensitivity when attempting to help someone free themselves from beliefs that are harmful to them. Because any attack on something fundamental to a person's identity inevitably also hurts the person themselves.
Disclaimer: to speed up the process and allow us to provide you with more resources, this post was translated with the help of ChatGPT. We carefully reviewed and redacted the whole text before publishing. No part of the original post was created with genAI.
References
- ↑ Delusion | ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics, World Health Organization, 2018
- ↑ Religious delusion | ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics, World Health Organization, 2018
- ↑ Delusional Disorder | ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics, World Health Organisation, 2018
- ↑ The Role of Dynamic Core and Mirror Neuron System in Dissociative Disorder, Kenichiro Okano, 2022
- ↑ Consciousness and Abilities of Dream Characters Observed during Lucid Dreaming, Paul Tholey, 1989
- ↑ Introducing Plurals, Elizabeth Schechter, 2024
- ↑ Multiplying models: Personal identity, dissociation and the possibility of healthy multiplicity, Rhett Lindsey Gayle, 2003
- ↑ Is it me or my delusion? Harnessing authenticity for an agential view of delusionality, Cristiano Bacchi, 2024
- ↑ Are clinical delusions adaptive?, Eugenia Lancellotta and Lisa Bortolotti, 2019