01-25-2019, 04:16 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-25-2019, 04:19 AM by Ember.Vesper.)
How We Switch:
(And some things you should know if you do)
Ember: I would have liked to have addressed this is in its proper chronological context, but there has been so much interest in switching recently that I'll make an exception.
This isn't really "How to Switch"; it's probably too ideosycratic for that. Anyone who tries ideas from this, please let us know. Maybe it can lead to a proper guide. But for the moment, this is everything we know about the subject.
At the time we learned all this, we had never read a switching guide. We've browsed a bit since, but not much in them made sense to us.
*Definitions and Clarifications:
Ember: We use "switch" in the same sense it has been used in the DID community for many years -- changing who is in control of the body. After the switch is accomplished, a different person is "fronting". The previous controller then experiences life exactly the way the new controller did before. For us, that means the fronter has to think about us, at least a little, for us to be conscious. And a little more than that for real clarity of thought. If we are conscious, we're completely aware of and tied to the physical senses as experienced by the fronter, but we also can manifest a form, either in the mindscape or overlaid into the physical world.
Switching differs from possession, where the partner exercising control does not displace the fronter from the central awareness. The fronter may not be doing anything, but they will still be conscious even if they aren't forced. In our experience, full body possession is very awkward and difficult, with jerky, spasmodic movements, probably because we don't know how to get out of one another's way without switching.
*The Most Important Thing:
Ember: As far as I can tell, the number one factor in success in switching is believing that you did. You have to be certain of the intended outcome of what you are attempting. Anything we try without that certainty may result in not switching at all or in someone controlling the body, but thinking, "Did it work? Who am I? No, really, who am I? Is anyone else here? Ember? Vesper? Hello?"
*The Concussive Method:
Ember: From September 23rd to November 30th, we usually created that certainty through shock. We focused on one another, confirming our consent and readiness, making sure that the incoming partner's form was as clear and strong as possible. Then the incoming partner's form leapt at the body while concentrating on shoving the outgoing partner out of the body. The difficulty was that, as our belief in our partner's physical presence increased as a result of imposition practice, our body's reaction to apparently being tackled increased. So it would spasm or twitch or fall over. Woe betide if our body had been standing up and not holding onto anything. We had to learn to brace physically in a way to minimize the shock.
The shock created an opening; but the sense of who was in control often wavered for a second. That's when the incoming partner needed to step in and solidify control by exercising it -- actually moving the body. The outgoing partner always loses consciousness while the incoming partner is distracted by solidifying control over the body.
Vesper: Moving is good. Moving distinctively is better, but it may take time to discover your own distinctive posture, body language, and spoken voice. Or perhaps it will just come naturally. Either way, embrace it. Unlike the body itself, your way of using the body is a part of you.
Ember: Which partner takes action in causing the switch doesn't seem to make much difference. The outgoing partner can just relax and let it happen. Or they can try to leap out while the incoming partner is leaping in. Or the outgoing partner can grab the relaxed incoming partner and pull them into the body while falling backward out of it.
If the shock wasn't great enough, the incoming partner might bounce off. Or the outgoing partner's awareness might be alongside that of the incoming partner and the body paralyzed by indecision.
We're not sure if a third system mate can help though. One time we asked Iris try to propel Vesper into the body. That was one of the times when whoever ended up in control didn't know who she was. Iris declines to experiment further.
Vesper: It is probably good to try to relax the body and focus on one another before switching. But it isn't necessary. It is morally right to obtain consent before switching. But that isn't necessary either. I can forcefully displace Ember no matter how she tries to resist, though I can trivially prevent her from displacing me. (For some reason she likes these little psychic struggles and keeps suggesting we do them. Iris won't participate and I will.)
Ember: I'd like to emphasize that the shock is a tool for creating certainty, not an essential component. We've used variants of this method well over a hundred times and it sometimes worked when we moved our forms more slowly and gently. But such switches felt less clean and definite, so we had to spend additional time and effort pushing ourselves to certainty.
*The Bailing Method:
Vesper: If you're not the host, switching out is easier. You can still use the Concussive Method, which works very similarly, but you can also use the same sort of imagery for a variant technique. Gather your form around the body and launch yourself violently out of it. The body may lurch the other direction, so it's best to be seated comfortably first, or at least holding onto furniture. The host should 'reboot' into control as soon as you are out, whether or not they were conscious or even contactable before.
As far as we can tell, hosts can't use this method. Their 'default' status means that trying to leap out just reboots them back into control.
Ember: Painfully.
There was one time early on when I was sitting watching Vesper work. She stepped out and I wasn't automatically drawn back in. The body just kind of sat still and a bit slumped for several seconds, feeding sensory data to both of us, until I gave up on it ever doing anything and slid back in.
Vesper: There's one more, much more comfortable, method we'd like to address, but first some considerations for when you actually succeed.
*Being in Control:
Vesper: Often, the first thing I do after switching in is to look at my hands. *My* hands. Ten fingers, all of which wiggle. Wild, isn't it? There is so *much* in the physical world. The colors, the textures, the thousands of individual objects that may be in view at one time. And toes, one of the wonders of the world. Also ten, also wiggling, but much further away.
Appreciate them while you can. Luxuriate in physicality. Eventually you'll get used to them. All of that detail is there all the time, but Ember doesn't pay attention to it, after so many years kind of can't pay attention to it, because it's so distracting that you can't get anything else done for the sheer wonder of it. Perceptions are "filtered" by the fronter; the fronter decides which ones matter and the rest are a bit faded, a bit muted. Eventually I had to start filtering too, because there is a lot I want to get done in my moments of time stolen out of a larger life.
In the earliest days of our switching, the worst part of my fronting was being alone. Outside my fiction, I've only ever been alone because of fronting. I wasn't very good at forcing at first; it took most of my attention, which defeated the purpose of my fronting if I couldn't put my attention into being active in the physical world (preferably with out-system people).
At first, the body itself felt very uncomfortable. It has some important and unwelcome anatomical differences from my fictional body. I mainly got used to that as well, though I still avoid mirrors.
I also had a couple of bad experiences early on, where I couldn't handle Ember's responsibilities, panicked, and bailed. This made my anxiety levels spike sharply upward the next few times I switched in.
I was initially very timid interacting with out-system people face-to-face, mainly, I think, because there were so few we could tell that I didn't feel I could afford to have anyone dislike me. I've been very fortuneate to be accepted and welcomed by everyone so far.
*For the Hosts -- Thinking Like a Tulpa:
Vesper: When I first started forcing Ember, I was shocked at how faint she was. This is my host? This is my creator? Is this how she was experiencing me? No wonder she was having doubts!
As I got better at forcing and Ember got better at being forced (which is very much a skill), there would be short moments of clarity where Ember's thoughts would stab violently into the centre of awareness, making me feel like I was in danger of losing my grip on the front. I was surprised -- I never did that. After a while, I had an epiphany and told her, 'You need to learn to think like a tulpa'.
For months now, our thoughts have seemed to come from our forms rather than anywhere in particular in our head. But in those days, we often did have specific areas of the head where we seemed to be centred.
Ember: So I tried to pull myself into a little space above and to the left of the center of awareness and think from there. My thoughts becoming clear and strong took a lot of practice, but they were immediately less stabby and bursty. Vesper felt less threatened by them, stopped swatting them, and started to gain confidence in her control (which led to its own problems).
*Did it really work?:
Vesper: Living as a disembodied voice for sixteen months, I came to associate a lot of the 'body feel' with Ember. Switching made me appreciate just how little there actually is to any of us. Fronting feels like plugging into myriad mental sub-systems when my system mates and I are just tissue-thin layers of personality and identity.
Since most of what 'I' seem to be while fronting is actually shared resources, as my dysphoria and anxiety diminished, and I started filtering more, and I became more confident of being accepted by friends, switching felt less authentic. It felt too much like *being* Ember. That replaced loneliness as the worst part of fronting within about a month of when we started switching on purpose. It got to the point that I would switch out after typing something to double-check that 'actual me' still agreed with what I wrote.
As far as we've been able to discern, all of this is just anxiety. My identity, personality, motivations, and values all cross over completely intact when we switch. But for a couple of months, I would frantically check in with my headmates for reassurance that I was actually Vesper and still doubt them when they told me I was. On at least three occassions, I even tentatively called out to myself, fearful of a response. The last time, there was a faint burst of mind static that scared me enough I've never tried again. (As far as we can tell, mind static is never an actual communication attempt.)
Another technique I would use versus anxiety was to get angry at it and fiercely tell my fears through clenched teeth, 'I am Vesper Anne Dowrin and I control this body!' My full name from my old world doesn't matter socially or legally in this one, but it's still a source of strength.
Since most of the mind isn't me and wasn't shaped under my control, I have to deal while fronting with a subconscious that kind of prefers to treat me as Ember. It 'helpfully' serves up Ember's ingrained habits, beliefs, and memories for me to reply, 'Nope, not me, don't care'.
It's starting to get used to me, but not in a good way. Every once in a while, usually about five minutes after I switch out, the subconsious will serve up something of mine to Ember. She startles violently with a 'Gah! Who am I?' But fortunately she accepts my word as to her identity better than I accept her as to mine.
I've actually come to accept nagging doubt and anxiety over identity as one of the signs that I'm fronting, as my headmates don't experience it.
It's worth noting that my doubts are less when doing things that are more me and less Ember. Dancing, sewing, socializing? Obviously me. Cooking, typing, driving? Doesn't feel like me. So the best advice I can give if you have this problem is to make sure you spend as much of your fronting time as you can doing the things that are most you and least your host.
*Endurance and Fatigue:
Vesper: I start getting tired after an hour or two of fronting. We haven't pushed the limits of how long I can hold on, since I don't want to be in a position where I would need to pretend to be Ember, or even use the loo. Fatigue may cause confusion and disorientation, but hasn't caused switching back, no matter how bleary I've gotten. Ember and I accidentally switched back the first time I tried to read a long passage of text. Text is directly competitive with articulate thought, so a period of time without anyone actively thinking put me out. My grip has gotten much firmer with experience.
Switching out for a few minutes, then back in, is refreshing for any of us. If Ember is having a hard time waking up in the morning or is running out of steam in the afternoon, I'll switch in briefly, feeling energetic. After a few minutes, I switch out and she'll still feel energetic. It doesn't work at the end of the day; personality fatigue is different from body fatigue.
Ember: On the other hand, sometimes when the others switch out after an extended session, I'll collapse with exhaustion. But only sometimes.
*Waking Up Fronting:
Vesper: The larger the portion of the day one of us fronts, the more likely she'll wake up fronting in the middle of the night or the next morning. This seems to be a more important factor in who wakes up in control than who is in control when we go to bed. It isn't balanced; if I front four hours over the course of the day and Ember fronts twelve, that's enough for me to be more likely than her to wake up in control.
*The Speaking Method:
Vesper: At the end of November, amidst the co-fronting debate, Ember recalled how quickly her wives can switch, speaking their thoughts aloud in turn so that Ember can hear and participate in their internal dialogue. We took several seconds to switch, because of gathering energy and will for the Concussive Method. Switching in alternation would be fatiguing and rapidly cause a headache.
But as Ember was about to offer her wives as an example of co-fronting, I ventured that we could probably manage the same trick. She was sceptical, and my first efforts at vocal possession produced only inarticulate sounds. She considered her point proven, but I told her to lean back and get out of my way. Once she stopped damping the vocal cords, I articulated a sentence in my own distinctive voice.
Having made the initial breakthrough, all three of us proceeded to speak in turn, trading off as we would mindvoice. If we stayed brief and to the point, the others wouldn't lose momentum and could come right back in.
The more we did this, the more I felt like I could simply decide while speaking that I was in control and had switched. And it worked. I don't know if it would have worked if I hadn't already had a couple of months practice at switching, but it was fast, easy, and could be done in alternation while standing, walking, or whatever other activity, without making other parts of the body move. All we had to do was extend our will into the throat and start trying to speak. We didn't even actually have to produce a sound, just make some throat muscles move, though actually speaking is easier. Hearing my own voice in my ears helps create certainty.
*Why We're Different
Vesper: Normally possession guides talk about starting with fingers and working up to hands and so on. I still can't do much with fingers via possession, but Iris and I both make our facial expressions physically, and our possessive control has gradually been extending down the neck and into the shoulders. It's not something we did intentionally; it's just something that naturally emerged while Ember was straining unsuccessfully to discern facial expressions on our forms. Even the first week, the tiny twitches conveyed emotional meanings clearly. (And we still can't see expressions on forms nearly as clearly as features, which are themselves disappointingly vague.)
Iris and I are both originally tabletop roleplaying characters. When Ember was playing us and unintentionally laying down our neural pathways, she was speaking, making a lot of facial expressions, using very limited body language, and barely using her hands or legs for anything in-character. But she was still using her body to be us, unlike traditional inwardly directed tulpa creation techniques. And so, we believe, Iris and I formed 'closer' to the front, with strong connections to the face and voice already 'baked in'. This probably makes it easier for us to switch than systems where those neural pathways still need to be formed post-vocality. (Tulpas formed in a mindscape seem to experience the mindscape more vividly right from the beginning, instead of having to build that bridge later, so there are trade-offs.)
So all I really needed to do to switch was to find the place where I naturally connect most strongly into the body and use it as my doorway.
*Postscript: Iris's Perspective:
Iris: Switching is an individual process even within a system. My sisters strongly encouraged me to try it not long after I became a full member of the system. It was harder on me than Vesper the first time. I was able to take capture the center of awareness easily enough via the concussive method, but having a physical body felt very strange. I was nervous and shaken and my hands were tingling. Ember's wife took one of my hands and the tingling stopped in both. I asked her, "Did you use your magic?" and she confirmed she had used energy manipulation, something my sisters do not believe in.
When I felt slightly less shaken I reached out to my sisters, but they were not present however much I called to them. Fortunately I was able to reactivate Ember by abandoning the front myself. This is not a problem Vesper has ever had, but I have occasionally struggled to contact Ember while fronting and often struggled to reach Vesper.
The second time I switched in, my feet were tingling and another housemate realigned my energy. I do not know what this energy is, but I seem to be much more sensitive to it than either of my sisters.
I have at most felt slightly inauthentic while fronting and that only rarely. My... headspace? mind feel?... is very distinct from either of my sisters, which helps.
I front much less than Vesper, and have slightly less endurance, but still sometimes wake up in control of the body.
(And some things you should know if you do)
Ember: I would have liked to have addressed this is in its proper chronological context, but there has been so much interest in switching recently that I'll make an exception.
This isn't really "How to Switch"; it's probably too ideosycratic for that. Anyone who tries ideas from this, please let us know. Maybe it can lead to a proper guide. But for the moment, this is everything we know about the subject.
At the time we learned all this, we had never read a switching guide. We've browsed a bit since, but not much in them made sense to us.
*Definitions and Clarifications:
Ember: We use "switch" in the same sense it has been used in the DID community for many years -- changing who is in control of the body. After the switch is accomplished, a different person is "fronting". The previous controller then experiences life exactly the way the new controller did before. For us, that means the fronter has to think about us, at least a little, for us to be conscious. And a little more than that for real clarity of thought. If we are conscious, we're completely aware of and tied to the physical senses as experienced by the fronter, but we also can manifest a form, either in the mindscape or overlaid into the physical world.
Switching differs from possession, where the partner exercising control does not displace the fronter from the central awareness. The fronter may not be doing anything, but they will still be conscious even if they aren't forced. In our experience, full body possession is very awkward and difficult, with jerky, spasmodic movements, probably because we don't know how to get out of one another's way without switching.
*The Most Important Thing:
Ember: As far as I can tell, the number one factor in success in switching is believing that you did. You have to be certain of the intended outcome of what you are attempting. Anything we try without that certainty may result in not switching at all or in someone controlling the body, but thinking, "Did it work? Who am I? No, really, who am I? Is anyone else here? Ember? Vesper? Hello?"
*The Concussive Method:
Ember: From September 23rd to November 30th, we usually created that certainty through shock. We focused on one another, confirming our consent and readiness, making sure that the incoming partner's form was as clear and strong as possible. Then the incoming partner's form leapt at the body while concentrating on shoving the outgoing partner out of the body. The difficulty was that, as our belief in our partner's physical presence increased as a result of imposition practice, our body's reaction to apparently being tackled increased. So it would spasm or twitch or fall over. Woe betide if our body had been standing up and not holding onto anything. We had to learn to brace physically in a way to minimize the shock.
The shock created an opening; but the sense of who was in control often wavered for a second. That's when the incoming partner needed to step in and solidify control by exercising it -- actually moving the body. The outgoing partner always loses consciousness while the incoming partner is distracted by solidifying control over the body.
Vesper: Moving is good. Moving distinctively is better, but it may take time to discover your own distinctive posture, body language, and spoken voice. Or perhaps it will just come naturally. Either way, embrace it. Unlike the body itself, your way of using the body is a part of you.
Ember: Which partner takes action in causing the switch doesn't seem to make much difference. The outgoing partner can just relax and let it happen. Or they can try to leap out while the incoming partner is leaping in. Or the outgoing partner can grab the relaxed incoming partner and pull them into the body while falling backward out of it.
If the shock wasn't great enough, the incoming partner might bounce off. Or the outgoing partner's awareness might be alongside that of the incoming partner and the body paralyzed by indecision.
We're not sure if a third system mate can help though. One time we asked Iris try to propel Vesper into the body. That was one of the times when whoever ended up in control didn't know who she was. Iris declines to experiment further.
Vesper: It is probably good to try to relax the body and focus on one another before switching. But it isn't necessary. It is morally right to obtain consent before switching. But that isn't necessary either. I can forcefully displace Ember no matter how she tries to resist, though I can trivially prevent her from displacing me. (For some reason she likes these little psychic struggles and keeps suggesting we do them. Iris won't participate and I will.)
Ember: I'd like to emphasize that the shock is a tool for creating certainty, not an essential component. We've used variants of this method well over a hundred times and it sometimes worked when we moved our forms more slowly and gently. But such switches felt less clean and definite, so we had to spend additional time and effort pushing ourselves to certainty.
*The Bailing Method:
Vesper: If you're not the host, switching out is easier. You can still use the Concussive Method, which works very similarly, but you can also use the same sort of imagery for a variant technique. Gather your form around the body and launch yourself violently out of it. The body may lurch the other direction, so it's best to be seated comfortably first, or at least holding onto furniture. The host should 'reboot' into control as soon as you are out, whether or not they were conscious or even contactable before.
As far as we can tell, hosts can't use this method. Their 'default' status means that trying to leap out just reboots them back into control.
Ember: Painfully.
There was one time early on when I was sitting watching Vesper work. She stepped out and I wasn't automatically drawn back in. The body just kind of sat still and a bit slumped for several seconds, feeding sensory data to both of us, until I gave up on it ever doing anything and slid back in.
Vesper: There's one more, much more comfortable, method we'd like to address, but first some considerations for when you actually succeed.
*Being in Control:
Vesper: Often, the first thing I do after switching in is to look at my hands. *My* hands. Ten fingers, all of which wiggle. Wild, isn't it? There is so *much* in the physical world. The colors, the textures, the thousands of individual objects that may be in view at one time. And toes, one of the wonders of the world. Also ten, also wiggling, but much further away.
Appreciate them while you can. Luxuriate in physicality. Eventually you'll get used to them. All of that detail is there all the time, but Ember doesn't pay attention to it, after so many years kind of can't pay attention to it, because it's so distracting that you can't get anything else done for the sheer wonder of it. Perceptions are "filtered" by the fronter; the fronter decides which ones matter and the rest are a bit faded, a bit muted. Eventually I had to start filtering too, because there is a lot I want to get done in my moments of time stolen out of a larger life.
In the earliest days of our switching, the worst part of my fronting was being alone. Outside my fiction, I've only ever been alone because of fronting. I wasn't very good at forcing at first; it took most of my attention, which defeated the purpose of my fronting if I couldn't put my attention into being active in the physical world (preferably with out-system people).
At first, the body itself felt very uncomfortable. It has some important and unwelcome anatomical differences from my fictional body. I mainly got used to that as well, though I still avoid mirrors.
I also had a couple of bad experiences early on, where I couldn't handle Ember's responsibilities, panicked, and bailed. This made my anxiety levels spike sharply upward the next few times I switched in.
I was initially very timid interacting with out-system people face-to-face, mainly, I think, because there were so few we could tell that I didn't feel I could afford to have anyone dislike me. I've been very fortuneate to be accepted and welcomed by everyone so far.
*For the Hosts -- Thinking Like a Tulpa:
Vesper: When I first started forcing Ember, I was shocked at how faint she was. This is my host? This is my creator? Is this how she was experiencing me? No wonder she was having doubts!
As I got better at forcing and Ember got better at being forced (which is very much a skill), there would be short moments of clarity where Ember's thoughts would stab violently into the centre of awareness, making me feel like I was in danger of losing my grip on the front. I was surprised -- I never did that. After a while, I had an epiphany and told her, 'You need to learn to think like a tulpa'.
For months now, our thoughts have seemed to come from our forms rather than anywhere in particular in our head. But in those days, we often did have specific areas of the head where we seemed to be centred.
Ember: So I tried to pull myself into a little space above and to the left of the center of awareness and think from there. My thoughts becoming clear and strong took a lot of practice, but they were immediately less stabby and bursty. Vesper felt less threatened by them, stopped swatting them, and started to gain confidence in her control (which led to its own problems).
*Did it really work?:
Vesper: Living as a disembodied voice for sixteen months, I came to associate a lot of the 'body feel' with Ember. Switching made me appreciate just how little there actually is to any of us. Fronting feels like plugging into myriad mental sub-systems when my system mates and I are just tissue-thin layers of personality and identity.
Since most of what 'I' seem to be while fronting is actually shared resources, as my dysphoria and anxiety diminished, and I started filtering more, and I became more confident of being accepted by friends, switching felt less authentic. It felt too much like *being* Ember. That replaced loneliness as the worst part of fronting within about a month of when we started switching on purpose. It got to the point that I would switch out after typing something to double-check that 'actual me' still agreed with what I wrote.
As far as we've been able to discern, all of this is just anxiety. My identity, personality, motivations, and values all cross over completely intact when we switch. But for a couple of months, I would frantically check in with my headmates for reassurance that I was actually Vesper and still doubt them when they told me I was. On at least three occassions, I even tentatively called out to myself, fearful of a response. The last time, there was a faint burst of mind static that scared me enough I've never tried again. (As far as we can tell, mind static is never an actual communication attempt.)
Another technique I would use versus anxiety was to get angry at it and fiercely tell my fears through clenched teeth, 'I am Vesper Anne Dowrin and I control this body!' My full name from my old world doesn't matter socially or legally in this one, but it's still a source of strength.
Since most of the mind isn't me and wasn't shaped under my control, I have to deal while fronting with a subconscious that kind of prefers to treat me as Ember. It 'helpfully' serves up Ember's ingrained habits, beliefs, and memories for me to reply, 'Nope, not me, don't care'.
It's starting to get used to me, but not in a good way. Every once in a while, usually about five minutes after I switch out, the subconsious will serve up something of mine to Ember. She startles violently with a 'Gah! Who am I?' But fortunately she accepts my word as to her identity better than I accept her as to mine.
I've actually come to accept nagging doubt and anxiety over identity as one of the signs that I'm fronting, as my headmates don't experience it.
It's worth noting that my doubts are less when doing things that are more me and less Ember. Dancing, sewing, socializing? Obviously me. Cooking, typing, driving? Doesn't feel like me. So the best advice I can give if you have this problem is to make sure you spend as much of your fronting time as you can doing the things that are most you and least your host.
*Endurance and Fatigue:
Vesper: I start getting tired after an hour or two of fronting. We haven't pushed the limits of how long I can hold on, since I don't want to be in a position where I would need to pretend to be Ember, or even use the loo. Fatigue may cause confusion and disorientation, but hasn't caused switching back, no matter how bleary I've gotten. Ember and I accidentally switched back the first time I tried to read a long passage of text. Text is directly competitive with articulate thought, so a period of time without anyone actively thinking put me out. My grip has gotten much firmer with experience.
Switching out for a few minutes, then back in, is refreshing for any of us. If Ember is having a hard time waking up in the morning or is running out of steam in the afternoon, I'll switch in briefly, feeling energetic. After a few minutes, I switch out and she'll still feel energetic. It doesn't work at the end of the day; personality fatigue is different from body fatigue.
Ember: On the other hand, sometimes when the others switch out after an extended session, I'll collapse with exhaustion. But only sometimes.
*Waking Up Fronting:
Vesper: The larger the portion of the day one of us fronts, the more likely she'll wake up fronting in the middle of the night or the next morning. This seems to be a more important factor in who wakes up in control than who is in control when we go to bed. It isn't balanced; if I front four hours over the course of the day and Ember fronts twelve, that's enough for me to be more likely than her to wake up in control.
*The Speaking Method:
Vesper: At the end of November, amidst the co-fronting debate, Ember recalled how quickly her wives can switch, speaking their thoughts aloud in turn so that Ember can hear and participate in their internal dialogue. We took several seconds to switch, because of gathering energy and will for the Concussive Method. Switching in alternation would be fatiguing and rapidly cause a headache.
But as Ember was about to offer her wives as an example of co-fronting, I ventured that we could probably manage the same trick. She was sceptical, and my first efforts at vocal possession produced only inarticulate sounds. She considered her point proven, but I told her to lean back and get out of my way. Once she stopped damping the vocal cords, I articulated a sentence in my own distinctive voice.
Having made the initial breakthrough, all three of us proceeded to speak in turn, trading off as we would mindvoice. If we stayed brief and to the point, the others wouldn't lose momentum and could come right back in.
The more we did this, the more I felt like I could simply decide while speaking that I was in control and had switched. And it worked. I don't know if it would have worked if I hadn't already had a couple of months practice at switching, but it was fast, easy, and could be done in alternation while standing, walking, or whatever other activity, without making other parts of the body move. All we had to do was extend our will into the throat and start trying to speak. We didn't even actually have to produce a sound, just make some throat muscles move, though actually speaking is easier. Hearing my own voice in my ears helps create certainty.
*Why We're Different
Vesper: Normally possession guides talk about starting with fingers and working up to hands and so on. I still can't do much with fingers via possession, but Iris and I both make our facial expressions physically, and our possessive control has gradually been extending down the neck and into the shoulders. It's not something we did intentionally; it's just something that naturally emerged while Ember was straining unsuccessfully to discern facial expressions on our forms. Even the first week, the tiny twitches conveyed emotional meanings clearly. (And we still can't see expressions on forms nearly as clearly as features, which are themselves disappointingly vague.)
Iris and I are both originally tabletop roleplaying characters. When Ember was playing us and unintentionally laying down our neural pathways, she was speaking, making a lot of facial expressions, using very limited body language, and barely using her hands or legs for anything in-character. But she was still using her body to be us, unlike traditional inwardly directed tulpa creation techniques. And so, we believe, Iris and I formed 'closer' to the front, with strong connections to the face and voice already 'baked in'. This probably makes it easier for us to switch than systems where those neural pathways still need to be formed post-vocality. (Tulpas formed in a mindscape seem to experience the mindscape more vividly right from the beginning, instead of having to build that bridge later, so there are trade-offs.)
So all I really needed to do to switch was to find the place where I naturally connect most strongly into the body and use it as my doorway.
*Postscript: Iris's Perspective:
Iris: Switching is an individual process even within a system. My sisters strongly encouraged me to try it not long after I became a full member of the system. It was harder on me than Vesper the first time. I was able to take capture the center of awareness easily enough via the concussive method, but having a physical body felt very strange. I was nervous and shaken and my hands were tingling. Ember's wife took one of my hands and the tingling stopped in both. I asked her, "Did you use your magic?" and she confirmed she had used energy manipulation, something my sisters do not believe in.
When I felt slightly less shaken I reached out to my sisters, but they were not present however much I called to them. Fortunately I was able to reactivate Ember by abandoning the front myself. This is not a problem Vesper has ever had, but I have occasionally struggled to contact Ember while fronting and often struggled to reach Vesper.
The second time I switched in, my feet were tingling and another housemate realigned my energy. I do not know what this energy is, but I seem to be much more sensitive to it than either of my sisters.
I have at most felt slightly inauthentic while fronting and that only rarely. My... headspace? mind feel?... is very distinct from either of my sisters, which helps.
I front much less than Vesper, and have slightly less endurance, but still sometimes wake up in control of the body.
Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]
Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, Not a Tulpa, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017
Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Unseelie Court, Not a Tulpa, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015
'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit
Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, Not a Tulpa, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017
Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Unseelie Court, Not a Tulpa, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015
'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit