Misreality Disorder

Is there really a sort of collective memory, created by a microscopical piece of information in the genes of a species? Perhaps something in the soul, like the bidaddous and Surface' theists claim?
I don't really think so, but I can deny that the latter would be a perfectly good explanation for the only disease the Surface's people hasn't been able to cure or even diagnose.
There are few trustworthy sources on the topic, since any scientist observing the sickness was infected too and now neither their memory nor their revised files and conclusions can’t be trusted.
But we at least have the information gathered from the original files and recordings before it was decided to forbid their study and keep them hidden. No, they aren't trying to hide the truth, it's a security meassure in case even knowing about the disease can be a way to get it too. I'd like to say that's a silly idea produced by the mind of scared and ignorant people, but we are talking about the best scientists of almost every field, terrified because they have already discarted the reasonable explanations. We can't blame them for covering all their bases, can we?
Neither we can tell that something is "just magical thinking" while I give you a tour around the magical installations of a company that will probably grant you a chance to do the impossible.

Symptoms

It usually starts with something trivial and inconspicuous. A simple argument about who was supposed to clean the dishes today, or noticing the overflowing trash bin even when you are sure you leave outside for the Recycler.
Yes, yes, I know those things happen all the time where you come from. It also happens often enough in The Surface, that's why it's inconspicuous. Before the Democratic Elections incident, people would shrug and find a way to deal with the situation. Only a few atheists would try to understand who was mistaken about what, or why, and even them didn't really care much.
Now that they know about the disease, people worry. Some try to diagnose themselves. But at that point there is no way to know for sure. To make things worse, the second symptom is not that the disagreements or small mistakes become bigger or happen more often. Quite the opposite, actually. Nobody will correct you if one day you go into your boss office, claiming that is yours, because everyone in your workplace will remember the same.
Before your memory gets worse, everyone in your life is infected. It seems that the biggest changes in the memory occur after the worse part of the contagious stage. While the real mystery is why everyone has the same false memories, people got particularly interested in the timing. Many believe that it was some sort of conspiracy... planned by a fungal species or a secret wizard society trying to rewrite reality for their own benefit. If you ask me, the fungus make more sense. I know enough about magic to be sure that it doesn't spread like that, not if it's good enough to affect the memory of so many people.
Anyway, back to the sickness: it definetely infected half of the Surface's population before the symptoms were bad enough for medics to understand that it was a disease and not several isolated cases of people having different problems to perceive or remember reality.

Epidemiology

The last analysis of the original data lead the experts to believe that there was mere months between the first reported cases (originally diagnosed as other memory related illness) and the great incident involving almost 700 million people. That doesn't necesarily means that the disease only started to spread in those months, but that's all the information they have.
There is no way to determine how it was transmited, and every attempt to prevent it proved to be a failure. Even the most isolated self sustained temples and islands were affected, and it continued to spread uncontroled until the Disseverment.

Type

Physiological

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Origin

Unknown.

Transmission & Vectors

Unknown

Affected Species

• Human (confirmed)
• Any known animal species in The Surface (There is some scientific evidence)
• Anything with a brain (highly probable, all things considered)

Other names

Confabulation malady
Eaminá's disease (or Elections Year Madness), in reference to the way it was originally discovered

Prognosis

Of all the studies conducted, none give any indication of physical damage or the develop of any other sickness as a consequence of the misreality disorder.
Last time anyone knew about them, the infected where living happy and healthy lives, as citizens of the republic they remember growing in.
They didn't show any other symptoms and now that everyone lived in the same fabricated reality they could go back to fulfill their role as protectors of the environment their creator trust them. Apparently they were very interesting in growing something that you probably know as corn.

Cultural reception

People were more scared about the political chaos and the potencial war, than they were about the sickness itself.
After the Disseverment it was the opposite. People were too worried of being the one infected, so they don't point other potential cases but observe their own selves. In any case, after such a long time they have come to trust The brainless to do their job and nobody worries about it as much as they did in the first years.