Hmm? I must admit you lost me there after the delusion part. You began addressing the when someone is delusional right...? But then you branched off to talking about love. I kind of got lost there...can you reiterate...?
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It is a difficult concept to explain/express. It goes down to the nature of reality versus dream, and truth versus delusion.
A saying is that 'there is no truth because people believe what they want to based on their preferences'. However, there is truth, just as there is God. But, this does not mean people do not believe what they want to. For instance, take a totalitarian society or a cult where people create their own world which is different from God's truth and stick to that. It does not stay because it is not built with the fabric of reality with which the real world is built with.
So, you have people who think they have heard from God and those who believe them. Such as the false prophets of the times of old Israel. Physical Israel. We can argue they knew better, and they did on some deep level, but they also genuinely believed their delusions. Harsh reality would come into their face in the form of invading armies, natural disaster, and the other plagues God sent to 'wake them up'.
If one stands up and says, 'this is from God', they have to be really sure they are not exalting themselves. On the other hand, if God really does tell them something and they do not believe, they would be disbelieving God.
Jesus showed how flexible and in control reality was, it is said He worked so many miracles in those short three and a half years 'the world would be full of books of them'. (Gospel of John, at the end.)
Yet, Jesus also pointed out the 'sun shines and the rain pours on the righteous and unrighteous alike'. And He showed this in His life. Yet, He also showed, for instance, when He was sleeping one time and it was raining how He could - whenever He wished - actually stop the rain.
He pointed out who He is both by His miracles and His words. Not just by the miracles being miracles, yet by their nature of goodness.
While we all know good and evil from the Tree of Knowledge, many people did not accept Jesus, and not a few even called Him "Beelzebub" (the Devil), whereas they said of John the Baptist, "He is possessed". The point is it was so good, yet they could neither see nor hear that -- it appeared as if the opposite to them, so grand and ingenius was the beauty of it... or so bad were the deeds of the Pharisees.
These people, the Pharisees and the rest of the people of the time kept their delusional reality until forty years later when Israel was literally decimated. And they still did not 'wake up'.
Ultimately, therefore, one has to know what is real by love, because in life there is love, and love is life. Those who have this love we know. They also have life. Those who do not are already dead.
The dead are as in a dream world, they are asleep. Whenever one is asleep they are not in reality, but in a dream world.
They are not in godly love and do not know it nor show it. They may have dreams of God speaking to them. They may virtually connect their dream worlds with others so many may agree on the same lie. But, it all vanishes, like a dream when God's patience is finished with and reality intrudes to awake them.
That reality is of love, for it is of God.
Normally, though, when reality wakes people up, it is not something they can understand because they do not understand love.