I’m using the DW version of the original post as the masterpost, not gonna try to keep the WordPress mirror up-to-date. Off to add some new notes…

First thing: a page from The Third Person, a graphic memoir by Emma Grove, 2022:

Transcript in alt text. The first speaker is Katina, an outgoing and social protector; the one who shows up in the mirror is Emma, who they eventually determine is the core. They’re talking about whether to go back to their therapist, whose approval they need to start on HRT. (Spoiler alert: they don’t get anywhere until they dump him and start seeing someone new.)

I don’t know how literal the mirror part is supposed to be. The art represents “headmates talking to each other” in a couple different ways, and things like “one headmate leaning out from behind another’s back to listen” are clearly not the actual physical experience they had.

Still worth noting, though! If nothing else, it’s meaningful that “mirrors as a visual device to convey headmates talking” has been done by An Actual System, in a non-fantastical context.

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Second thing: a system friend showed up in the comments to say “wait, hang on, this happened to us.”

If you’re someone reading this who’s had similar experiences, feel free to chime in and add yours.

(I’m sure there are people who won’t find it as credible as the earlier sources, because it hasn’t been in print for 30+ years. But I’ll believe you, at least.)

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Related: an “oh, hey…” moment…

There’s a brief reference in Sybil Exposed to a diagnostic method that Sybil’s therapist reportedly used. As the author describes it:

After starting at the University of Kentucky in 1967/68, Dr. Connie Wilbur “showed residents how to test for [MPD]. She recommended that a patient be hypnotized, then encouraged to look into a mirror until someone different appeared. The patient was then asked if the person in the mirror had a name and an age. If the answer was yes, the diagnosis was multiple personality. Connie did not seem to realize what recent studies have shown: many people, even normal ones, will see different faces in a mirror within minutes of gazing.” (147-148)

(The book is from 2011, and apparently the paper that first named the “strange-face-in-the-mirror illusion” was from 2010. She meant really recent studies.)

It really sounds like both Jane Phillips and Christine Beauchamp could’ve been experiencing a version of this. They don’t describe a whole cinematic experience of seeing the figure in the mirror move and speak — they just describe looking at their face for a while, seeing it become someone else’s face, and connecting it to a separate presence. (Christine knew she was part of a system, so she was able to ID a specific headmate she already had some contact with. Jane was diagnosed years later, for other reasons, and only connected this in retrospect.)

So! Sybil’s doctor thinks that everyone who sees this illusion is multiple. And Sybil’s exposing author points out it’s an illusion everyone sees, inviting you to conclude that nobody is multiple.

But, look — compare this for a second to the mirror box illusion (video), the one used in mirror therapy for phantom limb pain. That works on everyone too! You can trick your brain into processing, say, “the mirror image of your right hand” as “actually your left hand” — and it still works whether or not you physically have a left hand.

Makes sense that everyone can optical-illusion their brain into processing “your face” as “somebody else’s face,” and it works whether you have other people in your head or not.

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Finally, real quick, a Moon Knight thing:

From the strange-face article above: “The author, Italian psychologist Giovanni Caputo, describes his set up which seems to reliably trigger the illusion: you need a room lit only by a dim lamp (he suggests a 25W bulb) that is placed behind the sitter, while the participant stares into a large mirror placed about 40 cm in front.”

The first time Steven perceives Marc acting differently from him in a reflective surface, the shot looks like this:

Hmm. Hmmmm.

(A second later Steven turns on a better light, and the mysterious not-him motion disappears. For now.)