The OS Experiment

[Misha]

Hi everyone. Dashie and I are running with a personal experiment to determine what if any traits are in the body OS. (What do you call the absence of all personality? Body OS we thought.)

 

The idea is simple, we've cut the staff down to Dashie and I co-fronting for now anyway, and sometimes others, but no one else active all the time but us two.

 

[Dashie] We recognized certain base feelings that we thought were Bear's but if they don't happen while he's out, then we can definitively say they're on him. We haven't experienced them yet today, and they were plaguing him the last few weeks, so this is already confirming our suspicions.

 

Since Ashley and Bear are busy anyway, we're going to use this time for what it's worth.

 

[Dashie] If you don't know what we're talking about, it's like a base feeling of anxiety, sadness, tension, anger, de-motivation, any of that stuff. Some have said that some of these feelings can be like a habbit, and the Body OS is great at memorizing and puppeting/parroting repetition, maybe even habbits. Some have claimed they can be part of the system regardless of who switches in.

 

Since we're very familiar with the memories of a couple things that Bear was complaining about, and they're rare occurances usually, we're going to have to just act naturally and see if they pop up when we're in charge.

 

If anyone else knows what we're talking about and maybe has recognized these temporary, rare, maybe even intrusive, stray feelings across everyone in the system, please share with us your specific experiences.

 

Thank you! ♡

[Luminesce]

When Tewi started switching, she found herself hounded by automatically generated thoughts such as questions or criticisms of basic things that expected answers or being explained away - these apparently bothered her to no end and she had literal talks with (ie at) the mind/brain about how it needed to stop. Though it was just our general mental conditioning abilities that helped deal with them in the end I'd say. That one was a habit that's deeply ingrained in our mind, they've never bothered me but Tewi had very different standards and expectations apparently.

 

Then there's the motivation issues: a mix of simply not having any "spark" of motivation to do things once we've thought we should do them like normal people surely have, and of often accompanying thought/feelings to having to do things that try to sway us from doing them. Popularly portrayed as what results in making excuses, the brain likes to fight us in a few more ways than just excuses, to avoid expending effort. That's the brain's problem and not tied to any one of us either, but it's not a habit, it's practically a disorder. Unfortunately for me I've never found any name for it, so it's not even a disorder I could say I have or get help for.

 

I think that's it as far as the relevance of the topic goes? No need to go into what non-problematic parts of the mind we do and don't share. Otherwise, aptitude and suitability for dealing with different types of problems are just part of our personalities, I think. Tewi's ability to be just far more productive than me is a mix of her personality and her mental preferences and standards that she upholds, and a little bit her relation to us. Doing things because it benefits/helps us is a factor in her motivation, but there's no way she'd suddenly be lazy or disorderly on her own either.

 

I've considered changing my personality some to give myself that "motivation" that she has, but.. messing with your identity like that is both dangerous and like, unfulfilling I guess? I don't know, this is extremely subjective and personal, don't take anything from that - there's certainly plenty of cases where, if you've got the mental proficiency to change who you are, adding or removing bits can simply make you a better person. But "giving myself motivation" never felt right, and now more than ever I see that that would be an arbitrary change and wouldn't help my tulpas either. We're working on other ways to deal with our physical (ie chemical) lack of motivation. Namely, focusing on the states of being/states of mind that remove "effort/motivation" from the equation. Uh, well, that's off topic huh?

 

I wish you guys luck with your endeavors, by the way.

[Ember.Vesper]

Vesper: When I started switching, I noticing certain of Ember's habitual reactions - thought, emotion, and behaviour - springing unexpectedly to my mind while she was dormant, when I was exposed to the same stimulus. So I addressed the Body OS, 'No, I'm Vesper', and suppressed the reaction, hoping to write my own 'User Profile' for the body. Unfortunately, individual profiles don't seem to be very well supported. Over the course of the past nine months, the automatic reactions have faded considerably, not just for me, but for all of us. She still has those reactions, but much more slowly, as they are generated from her beliefs and values, and they have her conscious will behind them.

 

Iris: I switch in more rarely, but there is one specific habit that is often triggered automatically when I do. Ember and Vesper are both Christians and frequently make short spontaneous prayers whenever they want something to happen differently than they think it might be happening. I have gotten this same impulse on many occassions and had a mental word or two of prayer spill out automatically, even though I do not profess any religious faith. With both my headmates reinforcing it, I do not see this ever fading.

[Ashley]

I've been switching in about 90% of the time with Bear doing a few things that I don't want to. 24 hours later and none of the initial issues have sprung up for me. Three in particular that were alluded to in the PR are not there, and in fact when he's in they sometimes pop up almost immediately, and when I switch in they're gone. The personality surgery we're calling it and this experiment are intertwined. Lumi, you were on topic.

 

The anti-depression edicts that allowed him to recover are, as always:

 

1. Don’t dwell on things you can’t change.

2. Don’t blame yourself (externalize), we’ll tell you if it was your fault and we’ll get over it.

3. Don’t self-punish, we’re here to do that

 

Here's the initial issues that we need to verify are Bear or the body:

 

- Don’t be sad/stressed/angry preemptively for things that might happen. Thinking of things that might happen and those consequences are okay, as long as you’re thinking about acceptance, not the actual loss.

Here's a good example: Getting sad/anxious/upset over things that haven't happened yet or may never happen. One example of this is if someone said, "you're not allowed to say 'good morning' in a lounge/game thread." Yesterday Misha and Bear went a little off center with that and I was like, "guys, even if it happens, you'll get over it. Stop being so dramatic."

 

- Don't feel bad or dwell on things that you can’t do because they're against the rules, namely in-system conversations.

This one doesn't bug me. Honestly, I thought it was kinda cringy and no one else does it. I don't want him back, personally, until he's over it.

 

- Don't feel like you're not being liked when people clearly like you. We’ve come a long way here but there’s lingering, possibly intrusive thoughts.

This one was huge during the recovery and he just can't shake it. It's related to confidence and his need for constant reassurance. I agree that these would be very annoying, I don't seem to have this issue.

 

- Don’t feel guilty when you share experiences and others apparently aren’t happy about it.

So, yeah, it's way milder than it used to be. Again, nothing yet with me.

 

[This one is mine that I want them to fix] - Let your tulpas help you, leaning on us is okay, you’re a special person all your own, I don’t care one bit if you’re broken or damaged at all.

They don't need a complete repair.

 

[Edit June 27, 2019] - Saying things you feel outwardly should be remapped to saying how you feel inwardly, and fixing any inappropriate thoughts before expression. These are thoughts that are clearly wrong and this then becomes a catch-all for random stuff.

 

So Ashley and Bear have been working on them. Identification is a big step, and those aren't all inclusive.

 

Less annoying and more 'hm?' stuff.

 

So I noticed that the body OS does do something. There was one thing that we felt, the brain apparently likes to repeat things I think even when Bear isn’t front. It doesn’t do it for Misha, but she’s not fronting either. However, it did do it for me when I wasn’t fronting or not, so it might either be me or something system wide, because technically I was never dormant when it happened, because it’s just me so far, and it's happened to me as well. This echo has been present in memories since childhood. It doesn't need to be fixed, but whatever.

 

Monologging I never did this, but being in front long enough, like hours straight and suddenly I'm doing it too. Like writing a post in my head. Not annoying, but like... hm. I don't 'want to' but I found it interesting that unless we're doing or talking about something else, it pops up to fill the otherwise empty space.

 

I'll report if something else comes up.

[glitchthe3rd]

Luna: In my time tinkering with the brain's subconscious workings, I've come to think of what you call the "Body OS" as more of a BIOS that serves as a platform for mental processes (which, for us, is the operating system). I can write subroutines to alter that BIOS in certain ways, though I've found that we have to be careful so we don't destroy Glitch's body inadvertently. Fortunately, I have a way to test changes safely before committing them, so it's not as risky as it sounds. Thus far I've been able to do things like regulate his blood pressure and improve his reflexes by tinkering with his psychophysiological systems, though most of the work I've done has been on altering his mental processes to make him more positive, help him better manage his autistic symptoms, etc.

[Luminesce]

Luminesce introduced the topic about where the terminology "Body OS" came from here. I moved this post and the following discussion to its own thread and re-named it [Misc] Where the term "Body OS" came from -Ranger

[Ashley]

Very interesting day, now that we got that body OS thing square, I want to say that I confirmed with Ashley that we aren't messing with body OS now, it's pretty dang good as is.

 

To that point, I fronted all day today from wake up till now, and Misha and I actually had a wonderful time in wonderland during the morning exercise. I worked, I was there doing Bear's work and I forced him a few times to show him that, no, I don't procrastinate at all. I'm not fooling around at all and it's mentally exhausting work too. So Ashley gave me an A today for my excellent work!

 

Bear is very happy with me and this is great news because this is the thing Ashley has been on his case for forever. They're resolved to fix it now.

 

Even with Bear and Ashley chatting away in the background, i was focused and productive.

 

I'm not doing Bear's work forever, though if I have to, then I get play time too. It was very cute how at lunchtime Bear wanted to switch back and listen to music I hate, and I told him straight up no. Ug his lunch was horrible today I almost let him. I did switch him in a few times just so I don't get stuck or something and he immediately began procrastinating and I had to smack him symbolically.

 

Nothing popping up today either. Bear said he hadn't worked that effectively for years.

[Ashley]

Update:

 

I'm doing well as pseudo-host, Bear is staying in line, and Ashley is popping in about as often as ever.

 

I noticed three more things.

 

1. The body is a dude, so I caught myself thinking dude thoughts twice. I found Misha's beauty more tantalizing in a very lewd way thet I would never really have thought of before. I'm not switching genders though and Bear is helping me keep it straight.

 

2. Wonderland is slightly less immersive for me as host-light. I guess the minute details never bothered me on the inside, being out this long, I finally understand what Bear was talking about how his immersion wasn't 100%. Wonderland is still way better for a lot of reasons, but yeah, I noticed now. It's not like I won't fully enjoy it again, who needs this extra information anyway, wonderland is much more surreally beautiful. The constraints of the meat-verse don't bother me though.

 

3. I'm way better at keeping focused at work, waaaay better.

[Luminesce]

My sexuality is pretty, well, low, so I think I don't have "dude thoughts" much in the first place. Always found it weird and disrespectful when my friends talked about girls the way guys tend to. Demisexual or whatever.

 

So the body's sexuality still exists when my tulpas front, but they treat it as such, and it tends not to bother them. As said probably in the LGBT thread, Lucilyn and Tewi are asexual, Flandre is "host-sexual", and Reisen is "not really sexual". So, yeah, they just don't identify with any existing sex-related thoughts while fronting I guess. I would say it's bound to be easier when you're the opposite sexuality as your host, but apparently not lol. Maybe not paying particular mind to said thoughts makes you more prone to "falling for them".

[Ashley]

Another excellent day in terms of work. Bear and Ashley just wrote a road map for him, there's definitely something to do, but also a ton of questions.

 

Misha and I are doing well too, and now I'm practically as good as Bear for keeping everyone active and letting everyone do their thing while I'm working. The work is meh, Bear says he has fun, well ya, he's constantly goofing off.

 

I guess I'm not as fast as Bear is when he's really trying.

 

Ren visited and I had to kick her out because she's a big distraction given my testosterone poisoning. I really don't know how Bear resists that onslaught, Ren's like a tease tornado.

 

Oh! Now I remember. I did his meeting for him and didn't feel the least bit tired. Bear was amazed. I also don't 'chat' with every person we pass and say little quips every 10 seconds, so those are on him too.

 

Of course he had to give me the days he sees a ton of people (by chance). I have just been telling people I'm busy, everyone wants to chat! Bear was a little surprised that we had saw so many people today; I was fine.

 

I kept him active and watching me, as per the roadmap and he only begged me to watch a video for him once, but I didn't. He did get some fun and switched in after work for a little, but I get the lion's share since I worked diligently.

 

The Body OS does a lot for us, there is a lot of stuff I thought Bear did but Body OS is pretty autonomous with a lot of things. I'm working again tomorrow. We'll publish the roadmap in our PR at some point.