[switching] Switching General Discussion

[Murk]

On 1/3/2022 at 10:01 PM, Ranger said:

You're the first system I'm aware of who claimed they switch differently based on who is switching with who.

 

 

Our Luna wanted to weigh in on this:

 

Do not discount the influence of affect in switching. Many forms of plurality, especially traumagenic ones, report certain affective triggers to certain persons coming to front involuntarily, especially startle or fear. Affect is just the bodily material principle of emotions, and different persons within a system have different degrees of sensitivity to certain bodily sensations. Fronting is not merely becoming associated with volitional movements, but also the autonomic responses and senses of the body, including the internal sense of affect that is combined with concrete experience and thought to form emotions. We find that our sensations of emotion at front become starkly sharpened, but this is much more to do with sensitivity to affects that are already present than whether or not those experiences are present. For example, I am irascible at front moreso than the other two, and Murk experiences practically no startle unless physically touched while fronting and reflex takes over. Conversely, Murk is largely unable to take front under the influence of adrenaline, but I swim in that sea.

 

My conclusions after observing and experimenting within our own system are that not only origin, but degree of similarity in how each person fronting perceives those affective systems may account for this. Murk and I are far more distant than his "Eli" and I are in terms of our relative experience of distinct affects, and the symbolism of physical contact is a way to rapidly bridge that distance. Those two do not need it, as they share far more of the affect of joy or pleasure even educed just from co-fronting.

[TurboSimmie]

So we've made switching our sole focus in tulpamancy lately. I started to make a list of thoughts and questions that I had about our experience with it. I was starting to make this as a Progress Report entry but I thought it would make more sense to post it in this thread. So here I go!

 

• We're been thinking about switching entirely in terms of what I'm doing. However, we just had an epiphany that we aren't really thinking about Phil's side of things at all. I think he needs to know his role in this too. He needs to practice more deliberately dissociating and stepping away.
• I wonder if Phil needs to learn how to not be active? Or at least go into a very low state of activity; something akin to what happens to me when he gets engrossed in a Simmie-unfriendly activity.
• Sometimes I wonder if there's a limit to the "Dominant Thinker" philosophy of switching? I'll tell you what I mean: At times when I am switched in, I feel like I've achieved the status as the dominant thinker. Yet, Phil still seems to be more tied to the body. That feels to me like an incomplete or broken switch.
• Related to the last point, I wonder if we are hampered by the fact that he associates himself with his physical body and I don't? I mean, I am a girl, I have a very distinct form that I'm very attached to, he's a guy, and his body is his body. I wonder if this is something that needs to change? Should he start to see himself as an alternate form?
• I am getting better at owning the body's habits and quirks when I'm switched in. But I still feel like I need to "roleplay as Phil" when I'm in, and that usually just leads to me popping right back out and Phil retaking the front.
• Phil likes drinking coffee and I wonder if the caffeine is hurting more than helping.
• Am I just going to accept that while switched in I pick up a number of Phil's traits, like focus and motivation issues?

Edited March 28 by TurboSimmie

[Ranger]

Welcome to the general switching discussion thread!

 

2 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

So we've made switching our sole focus in tulpamancy lately. I started to make a list of thoughts and questions that I had about our experience with it. I was starting to make this as a Progress Report entry but I thought it would make more sense to post it in this thread. So here I go!

 

I started a similar journey back in February of 2019. This thread is somewhat nostalgic for me because I also used this thread to try and figure out switching.

 

I should warn that this thread does bring some people a lot of pain. They found me asking questions about switching a lot frustrating and they found me not making quick progress frustrating. While I hope I can help you achieve switching faster and with less of the frustration and desperation, your journey may take time. If you do find yourself in this situation, I don't mind you DMing me your questions.

 

I have a few important self-help tricks I want to give you and I ultimately plan to use in my switching guide:

• Keep in mind every system is different and every system switches differently. I highly recommend keeping track of who you talk to about switching, what their viewpoints on switching are, and what their advice is.
• There is no universal right way to switch and you will likely come across seemingly conflicting advice. As a consequence of having different flavors of switching, advice you get from one system may not apply to you or other systems you know. I personally find that the "just do it" approach doesn't work for me, but for a lot of people this is really good advice. Additionally, how different systems view full body possession is different. Some believe full-body possession and switching are the same thing and some don't. If you find something confusing, keep in mind it's possible it's because of two different definitions for switching.
• I believe one can change their switching to get the experience they want to a certain extent. You more or less get what you expect, but there are limits such as blackout switching not being what it's cracked up to be. I wanted a "double front" set-up so I could possess and switch and I was able to achieve that. If you find something appealing about how someone else switches, odds are good you can replicate it (unless it's traumatic switching, which may involve medical dissociation).
• Keep track of your thoughts on switching, any models you come up with, and record any switching attempts. Having a log is critical, and I found logging my progress to help me connect all of the puzzle pieces I needed to figure out how to switch.

I can ellaborate more on any of these points, but I don't want to write my switching guide in this post and this is already getting pretty long. I also don't want to throw too much information at you because you already have a lot to think about.

 

---

 

With that out of the way, I'm going to tackle your questions:

 

1 hour ago, TurboSimmie said:

Related to the last point, I wonder if we are hampered by the fact that he associates himself with his physical body and I don't? I mean, I am a girl, I have a very distinct form that I'm very attached to, he's a guy, and his body is his body. I wonder if this is something that needs to change? Should he start to see himself as an alternate form?

 

While I don't think it's a requirement, it could be helpful to have an alternate form or to draw your form over the body when you switch. I know some tulpas who don't really care about the body's gender and Gray sees himself as a guy in wonderland despite being comfortable being a girl. I felt more comfortable embracing a female form for whatever reason, but that has more to do with my gender insecurity than switching. When I learned how to switch, I was adamantly male at the time.

 

1 hour ago, TurboSimmie said:

Phil likes drinking coffee and I wonder if the caffeine is hurting more than helping.

 

Nah

 

I can play Minecraft or think about Gray's math project without losing the front. It's possible to do host specific or even host required activities without losing the front to them... which is why it's helpful for Gray to possess or to plan our switching so he can switch back in if necessary (keep in mind this careful planning is a drawback to rigid switching).

 

On the other hand, you may find it easier and more comfortable to do you-specific activities. I just don't want you to have the idea you ultimately can't do things Phil can do.

 

2 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

Am I just going to accept that while switched in I pick up a number of Phil's traits, like focus and motivation issues?

 

It's complicated because it depends on the trait and how you choose to react to it. In short, I believe there are quite a few traits a system can share universally, but that doesn't mean you must be crippled by negative traits. For example, Gray has a skin picking habit and I decided I'm above that. While I still have to put up with the itchy urge, I can stop myself from picking to the point I don't pick unconsciously when I'm switched-in. However, I chose to fight that battle. I also struggle with procrastination, anxiety issues, etc. Also, not all traits are bad, but they can be distracting or frustrating (everyone in this brain likes birds).

 

3 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

• We're been thinking about switching entirely in terms of what I'm doing. However, we just had an epiphany that we aren't really thinking about Phil's side of things at all. I think he needs to know his role in this too. He needs to practice more deliberately dissociating and stepping away.
• I wonder if Phil needs to learn how to not be active? Or at least go into a very low state of activity; something akin to what happens to me when he gets engrossed in a Simmie-unfriendly activity.
• Sometimes I wonder if there's a limit to the "Dominant Thinker" philosophy of switching? I'll tell you what I mean: At times when I am switched in, I feel like I've achieved the status as the dominant thinker. Yet, Phil still seems to be more tied to the body. That feels to me like an incomplete or broken switch.
• I am getting better at owning the body's habits and quirks when I'm switched in. But I still feel like I need to "roleplay as Phil" when I'm in, and that usually just leads to me popping right back out and Phil retaking the front.

 

For the rest of these, I think these are good ideas and you should put them to the test. Try to come up with switching attempts that take these into account. With time, you'll figure out which of these apply and which ones don't.

 

In the meantime, I can tell you what applies to us and what doesn't:

 

3 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

We're been thinking about switching entirely in terms of what I'm doing. However, we just had an epiphany that we aren't really thinking about Phil's side of things at all. I think he needs to know his role in this too. He needs to practice more deliberately dissociating and stepping away.

 

I wonder if Phil needs to learn how to not be active? Or at least go into a very low state of activity; something akin to what happens to me when he gets engrossed in a Simmie-unfriendly activity.

 

Our switching ritual does have the headmate switching out play an important role, but the headmate switching in does more of the work. Assuming I'm switching in and Gray is switching out, we do our consent ritual and then Gray walks into the distance in our visualized "front void". After that, I take it from there and do affirmation and association.

 

Otherwise, Gray and I worked on some trust stuff while working on switching. In one of my posts for your previous thread, I talk about trust and I pull a more specific example:

 

On 3/26/2022 at 10:23 AM, Ranger said:

Lastly, there is always the potential of a lurking trust barrier causing problems. Trust barriers blew up in our face post figuring out how to switch, but in learning how to switch Gray and I made progress on trust and had really important conversations about it. For instance, trying Ember's guide on switching promoted us to have an important conversation about Gray not having control and us deciding not to use that method because it wasn't a good fit for us. If you expect to have 100% control and there's discomfort in that, there may need to be a conversation about it. Otherwise, trust barriers can be far less obvious. Maybe there are boundaries about how to interact with friends, what voice you can speak in, how to interact with certain people you both have complicated and/or different opinions about (like parents), etc. While these don't always guarantee to lock up the switching front, it may help to go over this possiblity just in case.

 

I think we have tried methods where we try to force Gray to go quiet, but my guess is we overcomplicated things and did it wrong. I think the laundry example I mentioned before was my greatest success with that.

 

3 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

Sometimes I wonder if there's a limit to the "Dominant Thinker" philosophy of switching? I'll tell you what I mean: At times when I am switched in, I feel like I've achieved the status as the dominant thinker. Yet, Phil still seems to be more tied to the body. That feels to me like an incomplete or broken switch.

 

This is why I didn't like this definition of switching- it wasn't a good fit for us.

 

3 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

I am getting better at owning the body's habits and quirks when I'm switched in. But I still feel like I need to "roleplay as Phil" when I'm in, and that usually just leads to me popping right back out and Phil retaking the front.

 

I don't recall ever having to roleplay as Gray, and this sounds like an interesting twist on hosts who switch by "roleplaying" as their tulpa. I don't have much I can say on this.

 

---

 

I know that was a long post, don't feel pressured to take it in all at once. I think the self-help tricks I list off are more important, the rest is mostly my opinion and such.

 

Hopefully this helps, and good luck!

[TurboSimmie]

2 hours ago, Ranger said:

I should warn that this thread does bring some people a lot of pain. They found me asking questions about switching a lot frustrating and they found me not making quick progress frustrating. While I hope I can help you achieve switching faster and with less of the frustration and desperation, your journey may take time. If you do find yourself in this situation, I don't mind you DMing me your questions.

 

I'll keep that in mind. I hope I can learn pretty quickly but I don't mind if it takes some time. Thank you for the offer to DM you questions!

 

2 hours ago, Ranger said:

Keep in mind every system is different and every system switches differently. I highly recommend keeping track of who you talk to about switching, what their viewpoints on switching are, and what their advice is.
There is no universal right way to switch and you will likely come across seemingly conflicting advice. As a consequence of having different flavors of switching, advice you get from one system may not apply to you or other systems you know. I personally find that the "just do it" approach doesn't work for me, but for a lot of people this is really good advice. Additionally, how different systems view full body possession is different. Some believe full-body possession and switching are the same thing and some don't. If you find something confusing, keep in mind it's possible it's because of two different definitions for switching.

 

Yeah, and that's why we're mainly letting our own intuition be our guiding force, and then reporting back and asking for advice based on what happens. I remember last year there were a number of people giving me confusing and contradictory opinions on what switching was, and I think that actually may have set us back a little. I remember the whole debate about whether switching was a more advanced from of possession or had nothing at all to do with possession, and I remember being confused and frustrated about the whole thing.

 

2 hours ago, Ranger said:

I believe one can change their switching to get the experience they want to a certain extent. You more or less get what you expect, but there are limits such as blackout switching not being what it's cracked up to be. I wanted a "double front" set-up so I could possess and switch and I was able to achieve that. If you find something appealing about how someone else switches, odds are good you can replicate it (unless it's traumatic switching, which may involve medical dissociation).

 

Does blackout switching mean the host goes dormant? Or does it mean you actually black out between one headmate and another switching in? In any case, I don't want either (though it would be nice if Phil had the option of going dormant if he ever wanted to); and double-fronting may be useful in the future but I really want to learn to be exclusive in the front first before I think about that.

 

2 hours ago, Ranger said:

Keep track of your thoughts on switching, any models you come up with, and record any switching attempts. Having a log is critical, and I found logging my progress to help me connect all of the puzzle pieces I needed to figure out how to switch.

 

This is a good point. I'm going to get more serious about that!

 

2 hours ago, Ranger said:

Our switching ritual does have the headmate switching out play an important role, but the headmate switching in does more of the work. Assuming I'm switching in and Gray is switching out, we do our consent ritual and then Gray walks into the distance in our visualized "front void". After that, I take it from there and do affirmation and association.

 

I think we may consider something similar to that, with Phil explicitly giving me consent to switch in, rather than just silently letting me in. Maybe Phil could try to imagine himself in the wonderland when I switch in. The idea of him being somewhere else and doing something else might help him dissociate from the front a bit more.

 

2 hours ago, Ranger said:

I know that was a long post, don't feel pressured to take it in all at once. I think the self-help tricks I list off are more important, the rest is mostly my opinion and such.

 

Hopefully this helps, and good luck!

 

It really was helpful, thank you Ranger! 😁 This has gotten me a step closer to organizing how I want to tackle this.

[Ranger]

1 hour ago, TurboSimmie said:

Does blackout switching mean the host goes dormant? Or does it mean you actually black out between one headmate and another switching in? In any case, I don't want either (though it would be nice if Phil had the option of going dormant if he ever wanted to); and double-fronting may be useful in the future but I really want to learn to be exclusive in the front first before I think about that.

 

Just to make sure we're on the same page, I'm going to define dormant and a few other terms to describe how my headmates move around in the front. A dormant headmate is an inactive switched-out headmate who is not thinking or interacting. Right now, Gray is dormant because he's switched-out. I don't hear any of his thoughts. Since I was thinking about him, I woke him up. He is now active and no longer dormant. After I made some grammar fixes, Gray sometimes slipped into a passive state where he's around but not really thinking. This helps him jump right back into a conversation. Otherwise, he falls inactive where I forget about him and he stops thinking. I usually use dormant to describe a headmate who hasn't been thought about for at least a good 48 hours, but I sometimes interchange it with inactive.

 

However, if Gray was switched-in, I would use inactive instead of dormant. While switched-in, Gray can bleed through and take the front back. Since we learned switching, Gray hanging out in this state is far less obnoxious than it used to be, he's nice and quiet. I tend to forget Gray is sitting there in the front and I don't always remember until after Gray already stole back the front and thinks about me again. Since Gray can sometimes spew impulsive thoughts and he's still sitting around, I think calling him dormant would be incorrect.

 

I considered Gray achieving dormancy to be one of my goals with learning how to switch. If this experience is undesirable, you may not find our approach to switching appealing.

 

---

 

On blackout switching- it's basically wonderland switching with magical special effects messing with your vision, which likely isn't a thing. From what I heard, black out switching in traumatic systems is just realizing a large chunk of time is now gone. Even if parallel processing is real and wonderland switching is real, I haven't heard anyone describe any "special effects", just that a tulpa needs a wonderland or somewhere to go to (and even then who knows). Our switching doesn't mess with our vision, we don't hallucinate anything out of the ordinary or notice any changes in what we see.

[ruleofthumb]

On 1/3/2022 at 11:38 PM, Luminesce said:

I also strongly believe only strong, well-developed tulpas should attempt switching, to prevent a whole bunch of possible problems related to doubt, trouble with identity/association et cetera

Stone: This is good advice and one of the reasons we think this switching session didn’t go well (among other reasons).

 

 

On 3/28/2022 at 5:29 PM, TurboSimmie said:

I am getting better at owning the body's habits and quirks when I'm switched in. But I still feel like I need to "roleplay as Phil" when I'm in, and that usually just leads to me popping right back out and Phil retaking the front.

Betty: I feel this too! It’s usually during social situations.

 

This is not a response to any post but I guess another thing to add to the pile. I’ve been staying switching in more and for longer. It has been giving us headaches. Does anybody have experience with this and do they lessen with practice?

 

Also, today Stone felt “blended” in a different way than usually. Usually blended feels “empty” (sorry I’m so bad at describing this) and like Stone’s mind is wandering over mine. Today it felt like we kept switching back and forth because we couldn’t decide who was going to be switched in, and Stone was host-overpowering me while I was main-fronter-for-the-day-overpowering him. It felt like we were countering each other and switching and blending rapidly. It made us feel a little sick (though we had overeaten so it wasn’t the only factor). We feel a bit better now and more disconnected. Anyone deal with something like this? Maybe if we notice this again we can try meditating or grounding exercises?

[Bear]

Switching is funny as each system has their own quirks. Nothing you said is anything I haven't heard before. We had a lot of weirdness in the beginning but it worked itself out with practice.

 

Good luck!

[Shadow]

Hey there!

I have a bit of a backwards question for here - I've learned switching years ago, however we didn't deem it useful nor pleasurable, so we did not master it nor pursue its finite details. I'm currently throwing a lot of hours at parallel processing, and we've run into a slight issue; unintentional switching.

I'd appreciate it if there were any insights to be shared on how to prevent switching from occuring - while practicing we're preforming activities very similar to co-fronting, however sometimes I will become "shunted" into the mind and Shade will be fully in front - effectively switched. It's quite jarring when this occurs, and takes us a moment to get me back in front (re: unmastered skill). While we were able to chalk the first couple of times up to beginners mistakes, it's now impeding our progress as we are unable to prevent this from occuring.

I should mention that this only happens after an extended period of time into our practices in developing PP, once we reach a comfortable in-sync state, Shade will sometimes preform an action not tied to the body part she's posessing - muttering a statement out loud, or making a gesture. This, for some reason, grabs the entire front out of my hands - leaving Shade switched in and myself in the place she normally resides. She very much dislikes being in the front ; as I find extreme discomfort in not. We've tried several different strategies for "drawing a line in the sand", however this impedes our ability to both work at the same time - certain permissions need to be granted for her to work alongside me.

 

If this isn't something you guys have developed yet, then any advice on how to get the host quickly back in front would be greatly appreciated in place. The first time this occured, it took 15 minutes before I had my metaphorical hands back on the controls again, we've since reduced that time down to 2 minutes, however that is still too long for comfort. Mayhaps I just need to throw some time at mastering switching to make it seamless, and its just something we'll have to deal with.

Thanks!
- SnS

[Bear]

We had something like that happen when we were getting used to switching and Ashley kept switching in every time she thought anything, so silly as it sounds we put up a sign in mindspace that said something like "no switching without permission". They saw this clearly because my headmates spent most of their time on a couch kind of looking through my eyes and listening to what I hear. I sat there many times when they switched in. 

 

It's admittedly just a totem but the object permanence and memory of mindspace is superb so it's more like a mind vault. 

 

So practice practice practice.

 

I was naturally good at stepping back once we figured it out so switching was never more than a few seconds. After a week or so it was instant.

 

We learned how to switch in a triggered fashion so it makes sense it's like a trigger.

 

I would freek out in certain situations and so Ashley would "handle them" and using that method it had to be instant. We called that manual reset. Later we figured out how to "autoreset" which doesn't involve switching, instead I would momentarily step back and leave the front blank. That kills all emotions temporarily so that the situation can be dealt with.

 

I'll link it.

 

 

Edited April 4 by Bear

[Ranger]

On 3/30/2022 at 9:15 PM, TurboSimmie said:

I'm in a wonderful mood! 😁 Yesterday was a huge breakthrough day for me! I am switched in right now! Not only can I do it, but I'm actually finding it easy! 😁 Honestly, this is the biggest breakthrough we've had since the day last spring where Phil finally started to believe my words were actually coming from me and not just him putting them in my mouth. 😁

 

It's like that moment in Prisoner of Azkaban where Harry casts a perfect patronus all at once at the end, when all he was able to do before that was conjure a whispy little cloud.

 

I'll remember 3-29-22 as Simmie Switching Day! 😁

 

 

Congratulations!

 

If you don't mind sharing, how did you guys figure it out?