A request for information.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

So far, I've/we've attempted to contact two systems for relevant information... one hasn't replied yet, and quite possibly never will, and the second email bounced. Thus, our coming here for help.

To paraphrase the bounced email...

[paraphrasation]
The relevant datum... it deals with a paragraph archived here
(http://web.archive.org/web/20030409214246/disenchantedforest.com/essays/cocon.html).
To quote:

[quote]
'We decided to de-co-conscious ourselves. Get rid of that telepathy thing,
work on getting back to the way were were naturally. It wasn't as hard as
getting co-conscious in the first place.'
[/quote]

...I/we are very, very strongly interested in the contents of that
paragraph. Do we actually exist? Are we a system, co-concious by default,
that cannot tell whether it is real or not? Or are we merely a deluded
singlet, trapped in the reflections of its own false reality...? If the
second, how would I/we know?

If the first, we wish to become more separate, if at all possible. If the
second, then maybe the inability to become such would provide a clue to
our/my status.

In either case... if we do not need to know, we at least want to know.
I/We have attempted to contact the Consortium, without success so far.

Please, if you can help in any way... we would strongly appreciate it.

Thank you for your time.
[/paraphrasation]

...if we exist, is it possible for us to become more separate? To simply be ourselves, alone, and not have to worry that the others' voices are merely one mind's thoughts echoing inside it?

If all this is nothing but fantasy... then is there any way to find our for certain?

And to both, or to either, if there is... then how?

Please, any help you can give is, and/or would be, very greatly appreciated.

As per above... thank you for your time.

If there is any way at all that this uncertainty can be dispelled... the sooner, the better.

Comments

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

The Consortium aren't on line very much now due to financial constraints.

Do you experience the presences of other persons with you, sharing your mental and/or body space?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

I/We think so. We converse with each other often. Our natures differ violently in some respects, less violently in the ones which matter in terms of living this life relatively peacefully. At will (on agreement), we can control this body individually, acting and speaking only as one of us chooses to naturally, rather than as normal. However, I/we have deceived myself/ourselves before in an important matter (emotional rather than psychological), and am/are not aware of how to prevent such self-deception happening again, or recognising it if it reoccurs or has reoccured.

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

Being co-present - if you all don't like it then we don't see why you couldn't make it happen less or not at all. We share varying degrees of it between ourselves. We have found that better communication among ourselves has led to a more satisfactory day-to-day experience, but there are more ways to communicate than co-consciousness...

But the reality question, nothing's going to truly solve that one. How do you know that anyone is real, inside or outside of your body? How do you know that a singleton really is alone in their body? Or that they aren't? We work on theory based on our observations and experience.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

'Being co-present - if you all don't like it then we don't see why you couldn't make it happen less or not at all.'

Please. How?

'But the reality question, nothing's going to truly solve that one. How do you know that anyone is real, inside or outside of your body? How do you know that a singleton really is alone in their body? Or that they aren't? We work on theory based on our observations and experience.'

*nods slightly*

...experience. At present... there is no clear way to make a clear guess at the difference between the two possibilities. If we can separate ourselves further, gain experience of a clearer nature... to borrow other terminology, possibly I'm/we're a median. Can a median become more than a median? If so, how?

If we cannot tell whether we are one thing or another at a present state, then maybe by changing to a different state, or by moving further away from the other state, we can be more certain of the former state... but how?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Median, singlet, multiple, those states are fluid anyway, more fluid than they generally acknowledged to be. So yes, a median could become multiple, and so on.

These states are extremely subjective and you are the only one who can determine whether you are multiple, median, singlet or some combination of the above.

Does this help? (http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/glossary#median) We need to get lilairen's essay on medians up on the website ...

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

'So yes, a median could become multiple, and so on.'

How?

On the link: as it happens, we've already read that definition in the same search for information that led us here, but thank you anyway. (And also, for use in future, there should be a .html after the glossary, before the #median.)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was typing too fast.

I'll get lilairen's writing up asap.

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

How? Work at ignoring "in the head" communication with each other unless it is spoken. Encourage writing maybe, or some other kind. Engage in activities that one of you is intense about and bores others (hobbies, art forms, a sport or fandom?) Play chess with each other?

We've been working in the other direction - When you've lost two hours, have bruises that weren't there before, and one of the kids in your system is terrified, co-presence and increased communication start looking really good. It is a matter of safety and personal responsibility for us, and we have found we are overall happier when we're communicating better.

There's a mix of states just within our system.

Some of us can temporarily "merge" together - sharing thoughts, feelings, etc. Sometimes we're co-present like two people in a room together - we can talk and observe the same things, but we don't share thoughts or feelings. Others only seem to communicate with the rest of us by leaving notes and such. *shrug* Sometimes we're running solo, but when someone else takes front they know whatever happened while they weren't in front.

Many of us use more than one state - one of our kids who normally uses merging to play and communicate just took the front the other day while we were doing laundry, got a bowl of ice cream, brought it back to the laundry, and gave the laundry-doer back the front with a bowl in one hand, clothes in the other, and memory of what she'd done. It was rather bemusing.

The Triad speaks:

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

Hmm. 'Sometimes we're co-present like two people in a room together - we can talk and observe the same things, but we don't share thoughts or feelings.'... that best describes the state that we would wish to ultimately attain. A total lack of communication would certainly be a moderately refreshing change, but in the long-term--or even in the medium-term--the disadvantages would almost certainly outweight the advantage.

Thank you for your advice.

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

"Are we a system, co-concious by default,
that cannot tell whether it is real or not? Or are we merely a deluded
singlet, trapped in the reflections of its own false reality...?"

geezus. if you find out, let us know. That's something I've gone back and forth about for almost two years now... it seems like if I believe intensely in one, I'll just get thrown into the other... right now I'm of the "deluded singlet" belief about myself, probably going to blend into the former eventually... and back again... it's a rollercoaster, literally.

you mentioned being median... I sometimes wonder if that isn't the most difficult to be... you're not clearly one or the other. I sometimes wish I were just one or the other, so I don't go through this all the time, back and forth...

good luck with trying to find your answers. would love to know what you find out.

[echoesnspectres.livejournal.com]

We're like this a lot of the time. There are clear differences between us, but OTOH we're often not sure who's out, feeling sort of in-between (both between several people and between being one and being many). Sometimes you're mad at someone inside and you're not sure who they are, or sometimes even who you are. It really sucks.

We call ourselves median or "somewhat plural" to help a bit against the occasional "deluded" feeling and to prevent some of us from freaking out about it. Some of us call themselves people, others "angles", "perspectives", "modes", that sort of thing.

One thing we've suspected is going on is that there are these various persons, or states of being, and there's the state of being where all (or most) of them are combined (temporalily integrated?). So it may not just be a feeling that you're one or many (or one of many); it might be what actually happens sometimes.

[alt-grrl67.livejournal.com]

We just wanted to say, today has been VERY like that for us.

alt.grr.

[changelyng14.livejournal.com]

heh, from what you describe, it sounds like your a bit like how we're tying to learn to be, trying to learn to be how we are.

had a day a few days ago (first day of first job, getting offa disability). where we couldn't figure out who was running the body. at least four of us were pretty sure it was them, until they saw it obeying someone else's will?/traits?/personality?/voice? . very confusing and annoying experience, practical or not.
and we are worried that if we master the state, that we might lose some of our ability to solo.

one of our people has resisted our ?coconscious? tendencies from the get-go. while it causes her some problems, it seems to get her some clear bene's as well. particularly a notable resistance to some of our system-wide bad habits.

I feel like I could offer some useful tips to someone trying to move the ball in the other direction if your interested. gotta run right now tho.

g'luck
Synch of the Changelyng

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

'I feel like I could offer some useful tips to someone trying to move the ball in the other direction if your interested.'

Any and all advice/information would be greatly appreciated.

[changelyng14.livejournal.com]

hmmmm.....

without knowing the gorey intricate details of your system's operation, and while admitting that the majority of what we've figured out about ours is very much theory....

the algorithmyc steps we take to 'get out of' blending and into soloing depend on whos replacing who, but work like this:
most of our people seem to have come with triggers (conditions that cause them to involuntarily front). I can be forced if we think or talk about programming concepts. Tia's voice gets imitated, and her gloves and favorite hoody get worn. Loco can be puked up by remembering his 'era' and thinking in the pattern that he uses. for candy, we grab the headphones and max out the volume on some of her favorite music.

so we abuse each others triggers. it helps if everyone but the desired frontee wills themselves into non-fronting. and the one in question desires strongly to face. we also, consciously, make the decision that this is what we want, and exaggerated emphasis on this step helps us.

we've also learned how to program triggers for ourselves. and to a degree, we use this. tia decides that this pair of gloves are 'hers' and no-one else ever wears them. she makes them sentimental, they mean something to her somehow. loco has an old lucky 20-sided die that none of the rest of us ever touch.

we've dabbled in method acting before. and the techniques we learned in that, we use now to 'force a switch' and 'hold the face'. we literally 'fall into character'. we've also learned a few 'anti-triggers'. candy has particular problems 'holding the face' (which sounds like an ability which your system lacks and would do well to learn). if candy gets into a conversation about programming, and starts feeling like she's losing the face to me, she'll anti-trigger me, by cussing alot. using fuck every 3-4 words, which is actually causes other problems :p, but is alot more like her to do, then like me to do. if i'm trying to flush tia, I'll think like her, use her voice (which is a bit femmy), think about things she'd think about. maybe tell a story about an event she was involved in. basically pretend to be her for however long it takes for the switch to happen. 'holding the face', for us, comes after 'getting the face'. but when you're 'slipping'. owning something exclusively and then abusing it works well for us. a 'way of thinking' a word/term that you and noone else uses. no-one but candy is allowed to say 'yo' for any reason. I go for a smile that only i use. tia widens her eyes. stuff like that, and its gotta be personal for it to work.

also, envisioning operation changes that we want, has, so far, contributed to them being at least, easier to them coming about. which we've noticed, but we contribute this to 'aspects of our nature we don't yet understand'.

anyhow, hopefully something i said gives you ideas.
synch of the changelyng

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Thank you. *gratitude*

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Well, to start with, I should say that I have never quite agreed with the way the Consortium defined co-consciousness in that article. There is a lot of confusion over it, similar to the confusion over the term 'empowered'-- it originally meant something specific, but it's been redefined and reinterpreted several times.

My understanding is that co-consciousness originally meant that everyone could communicate and pass memories around, as opposed to Sybil-type cases with a 'frontrunner in the dark.' Some therapists actually called their co-conscious patients integrated-- I think this was prior to Truddi Chase, when the idea of giving patients the option to not integrate was seen as outrageous; many of the therapists who did this were probably well aware that integration wasn't viable for every system, but nobody wanted to hear that.

Some therapists actually did make the mistake of confusing co-consciousness with integration because 'in real MPD nobody knows there are others' (snerk)-- even if people continued to do the same things they'd done before they became co-conscious!

As for what the Consortium are saying here: We have always stuck to the definition of co-consciousness as meaning you can communicate and more than one person can be present/aware of what's going on at a time. I think that when the Cons. tried to do this with each other, they ended up in a state where everyone was aware of what everyone else was thinking and feeling and people couldn't quite tell what they were, but that doesn't mean that state is necessarily what co-consciousness is, or that people who are capable of in-system telepathy always have to be unsure about their identity boundaries (although, to be fair, sci-fi often deals with telepaths who have that problem).

More separateness is a tricky issue. I haven't seen any really good guide on how to do it; most of the advice out there seems to focus on going the other way. However, if you want to be more separate to confirm your own reality, I'm not sure if it can do that-- one person left alone at the front could just as easily come to think that everyone else was merely a mood or way of thinking. Sometimes it's better confirmation of a person's reality to be able to reach back into headspace and hear from someone. In fact, the times when we've most doubted our own reality were when a frontrunner couldn't hear from anyone else at all-- i.e. maybe it was my own thoughts all along, shadows that faded into the night because I lacked the will to sustain them.

It's easy, I think, to come to think that somewhere in all the experiences of multiplicity, there's a Holy Grail which can confirm your reality. There isn't any cultural permission for being plural; even in an MPD/DID model we're seen as being less than real, an unnatural diversion from an original state. I think that's the reason people try to reach for things like allergic reactions and brainwave scans-- they're so desperate to have their reality confirmed.

I think, cliche as it may sound, that time is the best proof. A single person will get tired of acting after a while and find it tedious; if someone is separate from you, they will not get tired of being themselves. (People can certainly get tired of playing restricted roles within a system, but that's different.)

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

*considers; nods slightly*

We see your point. However... even if it proves nothing, even if this uncertainty is undecreased... we still want to confirm it first-hand.

And also: by 'default', individuals are self-contained. When we think of ourselves individually, we think of ourselves in a format that suggests that we should be self-contained. However, in practice, that doesn't apply. We think of ourselves as individuals--however, we cannot think individually, cannot... be... individuals.

Each of us... to simply exist, separate from the others, free to think each of our own sets of thoughts in the privacy of our own minds... whatever the exact definition, whatever the exact implementation, that would be a great relief. Or maybe not--but at least, having experienced it, we would know whether it was actually a desirable state. In the present, we can but hope, and try to discover that which we know not.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

Some of this reminds me of how quarridors used to describe what they called gestalt. Perhaps you would find their website (http://commune.jinkies.org.uk/) or the entries in their old journal useful.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

Hmm. We've read a lot/most of the website, but not many entries of the Journal... good point. *head/s in that direction*

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

...As far as what we -do- know about setting 'boundaries', so to speak:

We often blur our own boundaries simply because we're lazy, to be honest. If someone's needed to answer a certain question, we tend to 'channel' them through whoever's fronting, resulting in a certain blurring of identity. The reason we do this is because getting them to the front on their own is often difficult and doesn't always work-- the problem is that when someone's words are 'channeled,' they tend to get overlaid with the words and impressions of whoever they're speaking through. And it also contributes to a certain lack of separateness.

Another system we used to be in touch with recommended having people play card or board games against one another. We haven't tried that, so I can't vouch for it, but I figured I'd mention it anyway.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

Second paragraph) Interesting. *ponders*

Third paragraph) Hmm. Thank you--we shall try it.

[taranfaithsgaby.livejournal.com]

quoted from 1460's post ~~
Median, singlet, multiple, those states are fluid anyway, more fluid than they generally acknowledged to be. So yes, a median could become multiple, and so on.

this is a really interesting point... i started out originally in my life, or i should say my bodies life, as a singlet/median... my aunts tell stories of when i was as young as like 2 talking to "other people" that they couldn't see... i personally, (i guess you'd call me the core?) am a walk-in that came in at the bodies age 3... the original is still here, and we also picked up another walk-in at age 13...

so, i guess in the technical sense of things i'd be considered a multiple, but i generally don't identify as such... mostly b/c i've not really learned how to switch or whatever yet, but i did do it once very recently, the original came out for a while when i was running around my head with one of my girlfriends' others b/c i was having some issues...

it was weird in a way, but kind of cool... the best way i could describe it was "reverse channeling"... i channel very easily, and it was odd to have someone not from the outside come in, but the sensation for me personally was the same... the biggest problem was, however, (which i find incredibly amusing and so did my girlfriend) is that Malea, the original, doesn't really get how to work the controls yet, like, he couldn't get the eyes to open, so it was quite funny... :)

anyway, this is a long way of saying something, i'm just not sure what it is... lol...

oh yeah, i remember... don't get too caught up in labels... just be yourself/yourselves and try your best to accept anything and everything you all are... :)

also, i'd say that the un-co-consciousness thing will depend a lot on what kind of entities you each are and also how empathic you all are... like, even if everyone is human, some humans are a lot more empathic than others and so it may be harder for you to "separate" as you say...

i'd say the first step in the process will be to learn more specifics about each of you and kinda go from there... i mean, you may not like being "separate" but i wish you the best in whatever you decide to do with it... :)