double bookkeeping

Meanings

1. The tendency, among those who experience delusions, to perceive reality and the delusions as both being real, while remaining unbothered by the discrepancy or inconsistencies between the two.

Etymology

By a metaphor with literal bookkeeping that evokes (1) a mental echo of the double-entry method thereof and (2) the notion of keeping two sets of books as a way to cover up the truth (i.e., by a different figure of speech, to cook the books).