Communication

[calliopeaurora.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that many people seem to have very good communication with those inside through emotions, images, talking, notes/journals and other ways.

I was wondering how the communication started. I feel a little weird leaving out a journal and hoping someone else will write in it and leave me a note. I feel i need to establish a connection so i can be communicated with. I'm still struggling with those within me, i don't know if its me denying or not. I know some are denying that others exist and even is they themselves exist.

I don't want to be intergrated just functioning properly.

When i'm about to go to sleep at night i sometimes hear people talking but its like a fuzzy radio in the distance and when i try to include myself verbally or internally they disappear. I also get general fuzziness when i something is triggering or when someone is getting annoyed. Has anyone else experienced that?

I'm pretty sure i spent most of my final year at high school as someone else and when i wasn't at school i changed/reverted/altered back to the main person i have been for years. I'm only now figuring that things i've experienced don't belong entirely to me but i can't/don't have a way to check with the others as yet.

Thanks so much if anyone can help.

Calliope's Sin

Comments

[ambersarchives.livejournal.com]

Most of my communication comes in the form of what I used to think were dreams. I do a lot of trance work and meditation, and I visited the inner world that way. The others are helping me learn how to switch back and fourth with them, and now I can go inside without much trouble. I just have a hard time remembering when I'm in there, or what goes on outside when I'm in. If that makes any sense...*shrugs*.

Yeah, I'm kinda "new" to this...found out recently that I have to share space in my head...

[singingwolf.livejournal.com]

Instead of leaving out a journal and hoping someone adds something, maybe you could actually leave a letter for them? Just something to open the lines of communication and to help establish trust, and see what goes on from there?

[shandra.livejournal.com]

We didn't used to communicate either. We started almost by accident: intruding on each other's journals and other written things, including a text-based roleplaying game. But it took a while to realize that was what was going on. One watershed moment was when Teresa was trying to make a timeline of her life over the last 5 years and there were so many gaps, and then other people went back and filled the gaps in.

Then we progressed to letters, and to typing at each other in notepad. Sometimes typing has been easier (for those of us who do) because there isn't the issue of handwriting to flip people out. It did feel stupid; I remember feeling totally dumb about it. But it helped.

Since writing was working for us then we kind of made a mental whiteboard where we could visualize a question and then see the answer. We especially needed to at work and would go in the bathroom to do that, so we joke about the 'porcelain conference room.' That progressed to having more full-blown encounters and conversations.

I think one main thing is to find a medium that you're comfortable in to communicate - some people have used tape recorders, song mixes, paintings, etc., to get started.

[ex-mushroom784.livejournal.com]

! the fuzzy radio! i had that for a couple of years, and went so far as to explain it to a friend of mine. he thought it was kind of weird, but never told me off for it, thank god. sometimes the voices were really clear, like they were in the room next to the one i was in, even though no one was home but me and a cat or two.

a really serious event made things change, and now they talk to other people (and very rarely me :/) so i don't know. maybe you really NEED them to talk to you, for them to? i still hear mine sometimes talking, but it's not in the radio kind of way. more like... walking around in a street, and accidentally overhearing into someone's conversation, like i wasn't meant to hear.

but this is just me. :) well, us, in reality. i... i'm really bad at explaining myself, if you see me posting in here, you'll see. ^_^;

[calliopeaurora.livejournal.com]

Great. thanks for your comment. I feel silly cause sometimes i have smart arse comments that come out of nowhere (sometimes spoken) and i get scared. I'm not even sure who is in me. Maybe i'll just have to wait for them like you suggested.

[ex-mushroom784.livejournal.com]

aw, well, i don't think you're silly. i can understand the being scared thing though. :) they'll come around, if they're meant to. maybe they don't realize you're there? i'm by and far not any sort of expert on this, just going off theories, and personal experience. so don't take my word for face value. :D

[thehumangame.livejournal.com]

When i'm about to go to sleep at night i sometimes hear people talking but its like a fuzzy radio in the distance and when i try to include myself verbally or internally they disappear.

Well we get that, but it's not due to actual other people... It just seems to be a hypnagogic hallucination (http://neurology.health-cares.net/hypnagogic-hallucination.php), the auditory equivalent of those odd visualizations people see when they're falling asleep.

(How did we tell it wasn't other people? Well, it was just random nonsense, and when one of us would try to respond, the nonsense would just continue as if we hadn't said anything. In other words there wasn't any conscious thought behind the voice.)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We have definitely had this just before falling asleep, we have it more when we're overtired or overstimulated. From the sound of the voices, we can tell it's none of us anyway. We have yet to hear each other's voices.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We're curious about this too since we've always communicated and our readers write to us all the time asking us about this and we don't really know what to say except get a message board or a big notebook and leave it out for anyone to write in. So any of your experiences would be helpful and we might put them in the FAQ (http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/faq.shtml) for future readers.

[ghostwalker.livejournal.com]

[changelyng14.livejournal.com]

hmmm.... try this.

in our 'tribe' communication is very clear. but outside of this circle people are very inaccessible.

a method we've used thats worked for us, we call 'broadcasting our thoughts'. please bear with my weak description since, like alot of this, theres no vocabulary for this stuff.

basically, its simple. think loudly, clearly, and slowly, and if u have any clue of who youre thinking to, think about them when your thinking it.

the idea is that you are thinking so that youre as hearable/recognizable as possible. it doesn't nessessarily 'make' them respond, but like i said, its worked for us.

explain your notepad, explain that you dont hear them but you want to (they might not realize you dont hear them) invite them to communicate, explain your motives, be respectful etc, introduce yourself, ask if they have a nick-name. crap like that.

goodluck

Lovecry

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

At first I wasn't going to reply to this because we have always been able to communicate so I thought I didn't have anything to add. And this stuff might not be applicable but decided to post it anyway.

Although we have always been able to communicate there was a period when we didn't communicate very well. This was because of issues around trust and safety. The events of our childhood had splintered groups and created a lot of distrutst and hostitity, for a long period of time the only focus was on survival, individual or small insular group surivival. So when we started working on getting some sense of community, opening up lines of communication a lot of work had to be done on ensuring safety and trust and respect. It didnt' work instantly and there were a lot of times when attempts at talks exploded quite dramatically, but those before the reconicillation process had a lot of aptience and determination. The regular meetings we set up, well the first one no one showed up, but now, years later there can be hundreds in attendence.

I suppose what I am tryign to say is that although I can't offer you ideas about how to communicicate I would say be patient and persistent, and also open to trying lots of different approaches more than once, if it doesn't work the first time it might work later on.

[gryphons.livejournal.com]

for us.. it was a little bit of several different things..
- We were pretty good at communicating within our houses/groups. Only a few could communicate with people in other or all groups inside. That got better, but the girl that interacted the most with the outside couldn't hear us....

-Then she started writing letters to us in her journals. and eventually got responses.. then people built a communicator system.. (sorta like a p.a. system) and that got better.. Now, it's sorta hard to shut people out .. but we're working on finding a happy balance

[kasiya-system.livejournal.com]

In the past, before I/we conscious accepted who we all were, the subtle communications were through stories. The histories and characteristics came to life through role-playing and writing stories. Also through "playing make-believe" and play-acting as though the others were invisible friends. Looking through all the old notebooks I kept and the stories I've written, I can see everyone so clearly. It was all right under my nose and I just didn't get it. -Suz

**

For us over the past few years, the online journals worked with creating better conscious communication. We created a few individual journals and let them do their thing. Also little things like creating profile/survey questions and letting everyone fill them in worked for us. Internal communication was in overdrive for us and we had to put up filters or little barriers to keep the noise down. Visualization helps alot; roaming around our world and visiting each other in our rooms or homes. Sitting down and having conversations. Things like that.

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

Communication... we had a front who was kept unaware of the rest of us for many years. She didn't know that we were here.

She was having flashbacks from stuff that happened when we were a kid and learning to reconnect with a bunch of emotions. Our therapist talked her into this "inner child" thing, saying communicate with the kid and things will get better. The flashbacks were rapidly becoming disabling so she was willing to try just about anything.

The kid who first started talking with her was mostly talking in images and emotions - wanting to hug a favorite toy, interested in a tv show, interested in what we were buying at the grocery store, that kind of thing. Listening to her "kid" began to build trust between the two of them. Our old front wouldn't allow herself to take a few minutes when she was sad to hug something (she'd just shut down the feelings) but she'd let the inner kid do it.

Then some of the other kids in our group wanted in on this deal. Our old front was a little confused, but *shrug* went along with it. It scared her, but we kept telling her we've been here all this time so why worry? ;) By the time the rest of us started chatting with her she was remembering us and everything went okay.

--

Sometimes whoever's fronting will just ask in our headspace and listen to the answers. Listening and being willing to treat one another with loving respect has done wonders for our communication. We've got our pain-in-the-arse folk, but treating them decently while insisting on decent behavior from them has done wonders for all of us. When people's needs are being met, they don't feel driven to steal time or fight for a chance at the front.

We've done the journal and notes thing, and left out art supplies (several of us like those.) Some of us don't "talk" in our headspace so we can understand them, but they'll draw or take over a hand if we let them and write with it.

Making things of interest available will often coax people out. Our kids like their toys, several of us like art and craft supplies, many of us like the computer, etc... Window shopping for clothes is a great way to get communication going. ;)

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Well, the way we first got our communication running again (we were able to talk to each other when we were younger, but got more separated over the years) was due to Azusa's writing. She thought she was talking to 'characters in her stories' for several years. The problem was because she thought she'd made everyone else up, she thought she should be able to theoretically change any aspect of them; often when people couldn't stand having that change imposed on them, they'd just leave. (Even if she had created them, there generally comes a point where the person becomes independent and can't be so easily affected by attempts to change them.) Writing about people, even if she was making up a lot of the situations she placed them into, helped her to get in communication with them and be able to ask them what they'd do in a certain situation.