101 + Glossary
What is Plurality?
To put it most simply, plurality is an umbrella term for the experience of multiple [people, selves, beings—and other descriptive terms] sharing one head.
It includes everything from the diagnoses of DID and OSDD to various spiritual experiences, and countless other variations.
There are a variety of ways that plurality can come about, a variety of ways in which plural collectives experience and relate to their manyness, and a variety of communities and subcommunities based around those experiences.
It is a tremendous spectrum and though there may be common experiences shared between plurals, no two plurals are the same.
Glossary
These is a list of some common plural terms as they are used on this blog. It is subject to change as more articles are added.
Please note that this list is neither complete nor absolute—it is not a reflection of the one true way these words are used by all people, nor does it include every word that has been coined, nor does it dictate what the “correct” words are. It is merely a reference to assist in understanding what has been written here. (Relevant reading: Julia Serrano's “There Is No Perfect Word.”)
Blending: An experience in which system members’ consciousnesses, perceptions, and/or identities become temporarily mixed together.
Dissociative identity disorder (DID): A diagnostic label for a type of disordered plurality resulting from severe childhood trauma. While the mechanisms are not fully understood, it is believed that dissociation occurs as a defense against trauma, splitting an “original child” into many, or preventing one “original child” from forming in the first place and thus forming several “original children”. Various individuals in the resulting system take up different roles related to the system's survival—for example, one member may come out to endure abuse so that others will not have to. While this does indeed enable the system's survival in childhood in many cases, unprocessed trauma, strife between system members, memory loss, and involuntary dissociation result in disorder later in life. (OSDD (other specified dissociative disorder) is a related disorder, with the primary differences being that DID involves relatively differentiated system members, while OSDD-1a does not, and that DID involves amnesia, while OSDD-1b does not.)
Endogenic: Originating neither from trauma, nor from focused creation as in tulpamancy. (Some have expanded this term to include all non-trauma origins including tulpamancy, but for the sake of differentiation we use the old definition.)
Fronting: When someone in a system controls and/or is connected to the physical body they share with everyone else. (When multiple system members front together, they are co-fronting. Someone who fronts, either regularly or just for the time being, is a fronter. The “outside position” where one is able to sense and/or interact with the outer world is called the front.)
Headspace: A mental (or metaphysical, depending on the system) landscape in which system members can interact with each other or reside away from the front. Headspaces vary widely in size, functioning, and complexity. They may be anything from a static landscape where external laws of physics don't apply, to an elaborate inner world with its own cultures that follows external physical laws.
Singlet: One mind, self, person, etc in one brain. Someone who is not plural.
Soulbond: A fictional character—either from one's own stories or from others'—who has “come to life.” Often seen as metaphysical in nature, viewing soulbonds as people from other worlds that one has connected to. Something that soulbonds typically have in common is a pervasive feeling of having come from somewhere else—of having had a life before this one. (The individual who connects to a soulbond is called a soulbonder. The experience of having a soulbond is called soulbonding.)
System: The collective of people, selves, minds, etc existing within one physical head.
Traumagenic: Originating from trauma. Many traumagenic systems also match or identify with the clinical diagnoses of DID and OSDD. (The word alter is typically used in reference to traumagenic system members, although there are some who dislike the term and prefer to be called something else.)
Tulpa: A system member created by focused effort. Tulpas may be created by those who are already plural, or by singlets to become plural. (Someone who creates a tulpa is called a tulpamancer. The practice of creating tulpas is called tulpamancy.)