The Inner Matrix: A Plural-Cognition Reframe of DHDNA — Part I: Theory and Method (n=1 Seed)

The DHDNA Paradigm maps individual cognition onto twelve quasi-stable dimensions, producing a per-subject signature whose stability across deliberation episodes was the central empirical claim. Field application of that instrument over a thirty-six-hour window of acute affective load produced an observation the original framework cannot accommodate: cognition under load did not shift only along twelve dimensions; it resolved into four quasi-independent positions operating in coordination, with a separate meta-layer confirming the absence of fusion. This paper introduces the Inner Matrix — a plural-cognition reframe in which the twelve DHDNA dimensions are retained as the expressive surface of a four-position council whose coordination dynamics, not whose static profile, predict behavior under load. The four positions — sensor, stabilizer, framer, actuator — are coordination nodes on a 3-simplex Δ³. The meta-layer, the Witness, is reported as a separate scalar integrity index. The framework is falsifiable on three pre-registered tests: simplex shift under affective trigger above baseline drift, coherence advantage of position-tagged training over flat training in a sovereign reference model, and Akaike-information-criterion parsimony of the four-position decomposition against three or five on a held-out corpus. A companion Part II is reserved for the LoRA-EMMA reference implementation. Patent Pending — U.S. Provisional Application No. 64/073,917, filed May 25, 2026.