apple collective

We get a lot of asks wondering if an experience is really or genuinely plural. This post is for the folks asking these questions.

Sorting plurality into "genuine or not genuine" isn't how we'd approach things. It implies that some people can be proven to be Actually Plural, while everyone else is faking it. That idea might work if there were an objective test for whether someone is plural...

...and if you were comfortable assuming that every experience not covered by that objective test wasn't happening, as opposed to the test being overly narrow or otherwise missing experiences that it did not account for (never underestimate the biases of even the best-designed tests!)...

...but we don't have an objective test. What we have to work with is subjective judgements of people's subjective experiences of reality. Sometimes, those judgements come from interviews and checklists in a psychiatrist's office. Sometimes, they come from family and friends and spiritual teachers. Often, they come from yourself.

There is no clean, clear-cut line between "plural" and "not plural" experiences. There is no one point at while someone falls from one category into another. It depends on who you talk to: we are all crazy or sane to someone.

Brains are weird. People change their minds, lose track of time, struggle to understand past emotions, have conditional memories, hear surprise thoughts, and move between states of self. People block off their worries so that they can keep functioning. People walk through doors and forget what they came into the room to do. People have a hard time recalling things outside of the state that they learned them in. People hear ghosts and talk to gods. People suddenly feel like familiar places are strange and unfamiliar. A good chunk of people outright talk to themselves, disagree or argue with themselves, or feel surprise over their own actions.

You'll see many of these things listed on "am I plural?" checklists, but many people will experience a lot of these things without feeling any need to look for an explanation. If they do go looking, then those experiences could be understood in a million different ways, and people will often choose different frameworks depending on their cultural context and life experiences. Some people use the framework of plurality to understand their lives better. Some don't. That's down to what works for them.

I keep seeing people say that they wish the plural community would focus less on labels and slapfighting and more on the experience of living as plural, so I decided to make an ask game about it. All systems welcome to participate as long as you respect the spirit of the post and don't drag discourse onto it. Feel free to copy and paste this wherever with or without credit, a bunch of these questions were lifted from other places anyway.

I tried to pick or at least phrase questions to be as inclusive as possible, but I've almost certainly missed things - plurality is diverse and my system only experiences a small corner of it. I encourage people to make their own ask games!

🌱 (seedling) - How did you discover you were plural?

💐 (bouquet) - What analogy would you use to describe your system to a curious stranger?

🌸 (cherry blossom) - What things were major influences upon your system? (e.g. life events both positive and negative; meaningful media; other identities)

🌻 (sunflower) - If you can communicate internally, what is that like? If you can't communicate internally, do you have other methods for communicating with each other?

🍁 (maple leaf) - If you can switch, what is that like? If you can't switch, is it something that you're interested in?

🪴 (potted plant) - If you have a headspace, what is that like? If you don't have a headspace, where do system members normally hang out?

🍂 (fallen leaves) - Do you experience yourselves as individuals, as parts of a whole, or some secret other thing?

🌴 (palm tree) - Is there anything that you do to spend time together?

🌿 (herb) - What tools, if any, do you use to navigate life as a plural system?

🌲 (evergreen tree) - What kinds of relationships (familial, romantic, platonic, etc) exist between members of the system?

🌵 (cactus) - Do system members have disagreements with each other? How do you resolve them, if so?

🌺 (hibiscus) - Is there a "common" plural experience that you don't experience?

🌾 (sheaf of rice) - What does your average day look like? How does plurality intersect with it?

🎍 (kadomatsu) - Do you decorate your space or keep mementos of/for yourself and other system members? (e.g. perfumes, clothes for specific people, art, jewelry)

🍎 (apple) - What advice would you give to a singlet looking to be an ally?

🍀 (four leaf clover) - What advice would you give to a newly selves-discovered system?

🍂 (fallen leaves) - Do you experience yourselves as individuals, as parts of a whole, or some secret other thing?

🌸 (cherry blossom) - What things were major influences upon your system? (e.g. life events both positive and negative; meaningful media; other identities)

It's not really a stable thing for us. Some of us see themselves as cleanly their own individuals (Red in particular prefers to be seen as her own person). Some of us see ourselves as parts of each other or parts of some larger thing. Some of us see it as a both-or-neither situation.

Most of us don't really care- we just know how we relate to each other. Does it really matter if we're parts or wholes when we have to live life together regardless? Does agreeing on that model help us, or do we get on better agreeing to live and let live when it comes to how we see ourselves? (Our answer is: we'd rather not bicker over this, and it doesn't affect how we function, so who cares?)

Personally, I think we're holons.

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I keep seeing people say that they wish the plural community would focus less on labels and slapfighting and more on the experience of living as plural, so I decided to make an ask game about it. All systems welcome to participate as long as you respect the spirit of the post and don't drag discourse onto it. Feel free to copy and paste this wherever with or without credit, a bunch of these questions were lifted from other places anyway.

I tried to pick or at least phrase questions to be as inclusive as possible, but I've almost certainly missed things - plurality is diverse and my system only experiences a small corner of it. I encourage people to make their own ask games!

🌱 (seedling) - How did you discover you were plural?

💐 (bouquet) - What analogy would you use to describe your system to a curious stranger?

🌸 (cherry blossom) - What things were major influences upon your system? (e.g. life events both positive and negative; meaningful media; other identities)

🌻 (sunflower) - If you can communicate internally, what is that like? If you can't communicate internally, do you have other methods for communicating with each other?

🍁 (maple leaf) - If you can switch, what is that like? If you can't switch, is it something that you're interested in?

🪴 (potted plant) - If you have a headspace, what is that like? If you don't have a headspace, where do system members normally hang out?

🍂 (fallen leaves) - Do you experience yourselves as individuals, as parts of a whole, or some secret other thing?

🌴 (palm tree) - Is there anything that you do to spend time together?

🌿 (herb) - What tools, if any, do you use to navigate life as a plural system?

🌲 (evergreen tree) - What kinds of relationships (familial, romantic, platonic, etc) exist between members of the system?

🌵 (cactus) - Do system members have disagreements with each other? How do you resolve them, if so?

🌺 (hibiscus) - Is there a "common" plural experience that you don't experience?

🌾 (sheaf of rice) - What does your average day look like? How does plurality intersect with it?

🎍 (kadomatsu) - Do you decorate your space or keep mementos of/for yourself and other system members? (e.g. perfumes, clothes for specific people, art, jewelry)

🍎 (apple) - What advice would you give to a singlet looking to be an ally?

🍀 (four leaf clover) - What advice would you give to a newly selves-discovered system?