"The alters may be few or many, of various ages, including older than the body, same- or cross-gendered, hetero- or homosexual, alive or dead, with either or both coconsciousness and copresence to varying degrees, which may not be commutative (i.e., may be one-way), communicating not at all, or through hallucinations, or through direct thought transfer, manifesting different physiological signs in the body when out, clustered in various arrays of dyads, subgrouping, layers, purposes, and so on.