Our Thoughts on Consciousness in Plurality

We intend to write this as a prerequisite to a guide we will write on this topic in the future. We also just wanted to yap about this as we have quite strong feelings on it lol. Sorry if this feels a bit awkward or weird, we’re still getting used to writing in this sort of way (we’re usually just fictional writers). So with that, let us begin!

We don’t like consciousness labels. We find them very restrictive, and they also do not mesh well with our spiritual beliefs about our system (which we will probably cover in detail in another post). Within the plural community, we see a lot of people who want to go from being monoconscious to polyconscious (one stream of consciousness to several), and we were in that position as well.

We found that dropping the labels really sped up our separation. Instead of seeing our consciousness like a box or an inherent part of us, we began seeing it as a handful of skills that we could train.

Parallel processing: This is the skill of two or more headmates being able to keep their streams of thought at the same time in a system. It is a term that has originated from the tulpamancy community, often used to describe the ability to go to the innerworld/wonderland when not fronting, however I have changed the definition slightly for this context.

In systems who do not have this skill, only one headmate can think at a time. If they have internal communication, it will often feel like “passing a microphone” to other headmates, and headmates will often not be able to bring themselves online without the fronter purposefully bringing them out. These types of systems will often also not be able to hide thoughts from one another. Headmates will not be able to do anything whilst in back, and headmates will not be able to visualise things separately either.

A system with very good parallel processing can have multiple thought streams online at once. Headmates will be able to continue thinking whilst not in front, and will be able to become co conscious with the fronter(s) at will. These systems may also have the skill of talking to each other in back without the fronters involvement, and they will often be able to hide their thoughts from one another.

Most systems lie in between these two examples. We have some of these skills in varying levels ourselves.

Purposeful possessive switching:switching in a way where one headmate has control of the body however you still retain your sense of “I” and feel like your body has been taken over, as opposed to none-possessive switching where you feel like you “become” and other headmate.

This is basically learning how to purposefully dissociate from the body. You will often need some level of parallel processing to achieve this type of switching if you don’t have it already, but being dissociated from the body does not require a constant 24/7 thoughtsteam from the headmate in back.

We have seen some systems and others be able to learn how to entirely disconnect with some senses of their choice (usually touch), however you do not need to entirely disconnect from a sense in order to achieve possessive switching. We do find it very interesting that you can do that, and it is something we wish to try working towards for curiosity purposes when we feel we have better parallel processing skills.

A continuous and immersive innerworld: Innerworlds can often be one of two things- an imagined space you can use as a tool to interact with your headmates in, or a place you and your headmates can go whilst not in front, and often times people trying become polyconscious want this.

This is something that we haven't really achieved any progress in, and therefore aren’t really sure on how to achieve this, however we are currently attempting a handful of things. One of which is continuous memory generation, where we essentially “fake it till we make it” and pretend we have done thing in the innerworld in hope that the brain will eventually start generating these things we did or memories automatically.

We are also training prophantasia and perception bending, which are essentially controlled and purposeful hallucinations. We reckon if we learn how to do this in combination with the previous skills, we’ll be able to create an immersive innerworld

So yeah. This is basically the basis of the guide we’ll write on plural consciousness, and our outlook on this aspect of plurality. We see all of plurality as skills, knobs you can turn up or down with practice and intention.