Realization Vomit!

*Possible Trigger Warning: talk of inner worlds, system structures, alters, etc.*

Realizations:
-- maiingan is a large black wolf

-- each host as different inner world
in mine (kyra's) most (if not all that I could see) are wolves and it is a wintery land

-- need music and walking in order to truly see inside

-- music helps us with imagery; walking helps us get "lost" in ourselves- we're alone while we do it

-- saw maiingan again; touched her; pet her; rode her; rode her to the edge of an ice cliff and jumped through what seemed to be the sun and arrived inside cassandra's inner world where everyone was human and there were the hallways and rooms talked about

-- each of us have a part of our own inner world that we have to be out to truly "unlock"

-- shock of maiingan and i jumping through and suddenly appearing in the inner world everyone knows of shocked all of us so much that we almost collapsed while walking. i even froze for a good minute.

-- each host "had" different alters; "my" littles were ones without a name, now only known as "blank" and "pretty"; i'm the one who "had" damone and dallas; i'm the one who "had" luna and somewhat l.c.; cassandra is the one who "had" rain, kat, and cassie; cassandra is the one who "had" l.c. and glimpses of luna; we "shared" some alters like kat/kataki; this is why cassandra was not aware of them and why they were on a "second level"- they were mostly "with" me, not cassandra, so that's why things have gotten easier for alters like damone and why alters have been surfacing since i came "out" for the first real time since i was last host.

*whew!*

Ok. Got all that at least out there. Now I can slow down and explain it all.


So, today I went for a walk, and I took my MP3 player with me so that I could listen to music while walking. I walked past our old house, and through our old neighborhood. Then, on the way home, I began to focus on the images the music was creating in my mind. And suddenly, I found myself inside! But it wasn't the inner world I'd heard about. It was the inner world that I had written about a long time ago, in 2001 (and I now remember that I was the one who wrote about it). A wintery land, with snowy mountains, iced over lakes, snow fields, ice burgs, cliffs, and icicle-covered trees.

As the music continued to play, I saw a vision of a large, black wolf's head appear before me in the clouds. I knew that wolf. A name echoed in my mind. "Maiingan". That was the wolf's name, I knew it, I felt it. Maiingan. I called the name, "Maiingan?" The wolf nodded slowly, silver eyes staring at me. Suddenly, with the music instrumental break, silver lightning struck down from the clouds Mainngan had appeared in, and immediately an enormous night-black wolf, taller than me, who I knew to be Maiingan, was standing right in front of me.


I continued to let myself get lost in my mental images as the music played and I walked.

As I looked at the wolf, I had memories flash through my mind rapidly. I saw myself atop a large black wolf, riding as if I was on a horse, racing through the snow. I saw myself playing with a large black wolf, wrestling around. I saw myself petting a large black wolf.
And suddenly I realized, I knew this wolf. This was Maiingan. This large, black wolf is who I wrote about when I wrote about my wintery inner world in 2001, the wolf that I wrote invited me on a "joy run with her pack". This was my inner world, the one I had been in when I was host, the one I knew, the one I had always had, and this wolf was Maiingan, my wolf friend who was always there with and for me inside this snowy place.
I did a jumping hug onto Maiingan's neck and wrapped my arms around as far as they'd go. Inside I was crying, outside my eyes were watering. I was being reunited with, as far as I know, a life-long friend of mine. Not just a friend...family. I felt a wave of happiness wash over me.


The music continued to play and I found myself word-vomiting questions at Maiingan. (She's not a normal wolf, she can speak, and she's always seemed to "know all" pretty much). I asked her how I finally saw this world, what happened to it; I asked her where the other inner world was, the ones the other's knew and I had heard about; I asked her how this all worked; I asked her question after question. And surprisingly, she answered clearly (sometimes she can be like a sphinx and answer in riddles and such).

She said that each host has/had a different inner world that was "their's".

My inner world from when I was host was this wintery land, with Maiingan for company. The others were there, too, I just never knew it because in my inner world, most are wolves. As the music continued to play, Maiingan made the sky begin to snow, and I let myself get completely lost "inside" myself. Suddenly, I saw wolves. One with red eyes- and I knew, and felt, that was Kat/Kataki. One with blue fur and silver eyes- that was Rain/Riyoku. I knew who each wolf was, and they were all the alters that I thought I never knew and wasn't aware of at the time. These were wolves I had "grown up with" inside this wintery land. I saw the dark gray wolf named Shadow (known as Shay); I saw the black wolf with black eyes that had been named "Midnight" (known as L.C.); I saw "Midnight's" twin, the black wolf that had a white, crescent-shaped mark on her forehead that looks like a moon named "Luna" (known as Luna); it was amazing!

Maiingan explained that in my inner world, the alters were wolves (or at least, most of them are, I didn't see everyone yet). That's just how they appeared to me, I guess. Or something like that.


I asked her why I hadn't been able to see this or "get" here before. Maiingan explained that the best way to see and be in our inner worlds is to at least be listening to music, if not walking alone as well. The music helps our mental imagery and helps it to become clearer much easier, and walking helps us to "get lost" in ourselves, since we used to walk a lot just to walk, with no specific destination and only heading back when we felt like it (sometimes we'd walk for hours). Lately, with all the moving, we haven't been walking as often, much less walking alone while getting lost in music. So that explains a lot. She also explained that being alone for the walking is important because it's when we're alone that we feel safe to surface as we please, or we feel safe to truly get "lost" inside our inner world, and such.


I asked her why others hadn't seen my inner world. She explained that actually, each of us as alters has a small part of our inner world that's "their's", and they have to be fully "out" before they can "unlock" it (and even then, they need to either be mediating or listening to music or walking, because otherwise it's too hard/fuzzy/unclear/unfocused). She also said that hosts have actual inner worlds of their own, like separate worlds, but alters that aren't/weren't hosts simply have parts of those inner worlds that are "their's". It's kinda like... hosts have whole planets that are "their's", and alters have areas within that planet that's specifically "their's". So on some level, we each have our "own" inner world.


The music was still playing, I was still walking, and I just let myself stay "lost" inside.


I stopped asking questions and just watched the images that formed in my mind to the music. I saw myself riding atop of Maiingan, across the snow, jumping over small breaks in cliffs, running across ice burgs and jumping around. We kept running until we reached the highest cliff in the land, snow-covered with a sheer icy drop on the other side. To the music, we kept running, and I wondered what was going to happen. The music built. Maiingan was at full speed and I was crouching low on her back, hanging on tight to her fur. The music reached a climax at the same time Maiingan reached the edge of the cliff and she jumped....we were headed towards the sun, or at least, what seemed to be the sun...we passed through the sun...and when we landed, we found ourselves inside a room that looked similar to the main bridge on a spaceship (like in Star Trek). People were standing around, looking shocked. As I looked around, I realized I knew this room from description, and I knew who the people were that were staring at me. This was the inner world I had heard about, the one with the Control Room and hallways and bedrooms. These were the alters that I hadn't exactly "met" yet, the same alters as the wolves in my world. This was Cassandra's inner world, and Maiingan and I had finally succeeded at getting inside it.

We all stared at each other for what seemed an eternity. The shock was so great that I nearly collapsed as I was walking, and I stopped dead in my tracks and froze for a good minute. Then suddenly, chaos erupted. Hugs, questions, handshakes, staring at Maiingan, excitement, amazement, all being done in a blur. I looked back to where we had "come from", and saw a bright white portal-thing hovering where the sun had been in my world, now about the size of a watermelon (except circular).

But then I arrived home. And the music had to be turned off until I got to my/our room. And as soon as the music shut off, my mind "shut off", and everything went black.



When I got into my room, I turned the music back on. I wasn't able to get back into my world, but I was able to get back in contact with Maiingan. I asked her questions about alters, and why there's different awareness throughout the system, and why some alters seem to "fit" together better or "operate" better with certain other alters.

Maiingan explained to me that each host "had" their own alters. Kinda like each host had their own subsystem, so a piece of the whole system. So each host has the most awareness with the alters that were in their "subsystem" group.


Like when I was host, my "subsystem" contained Luna, sometimes L.C., Kataki/Kat, littles with no name (now only known as "Blank" and "Pretty" so far), sometimes Riyoku/Rain, and Damone. And Maiingan. I don't know if Maiingan is an alter or not. I know there's been speculation that she's our Internalized Self Helper, but now there's talk that she might be more like a Gatekeeper. (That's as much as I know so far, that could be all I "had" or there could be more). However, I was only aware of voices for the most part, and I only really knew of Luna (except she went by L.C.), Kataki/Kat, and sometimes L.C. (who I thought was just a different mood of Luna).

When Cassie was host, her "subsystem" contained Ray, Katherine/Kat, Cassandra, kinda Valera, Dallas, Lynn, Keith/"Little Ryan", "Big Ryan", and Shay. (That's as much as I know so far). But Cassie was only really aware of Katherine/Kat.

When Cassandra was host (back before she joined this site), her "subsystem" contained Kataki/Kat, Riyoku/Rain, Cassie, L.C., sometimes Luna, Rebel, Valera, Dallas, Cassidy, and "Hannibal". (That's as much as I know so far). But Cassandra was only really aware of Kataki/Kat, Riyoku/Rain, L.C., and Cassie.


So, we have different levels of awareness with certain alters because hosts had different "subsystems", that were kinda like the "main alters" to them, the ones that were most there or were more developed during that time or stuff like that.

Hope that made sense...


*whew*

Now I think I'm done babbling. I just had to share all that I found out! It was so exciting to learn all of this! And it's a relief with how much is making sense!


~Kyra

This is great progress And great work writing it all down and making sense of everything.

If I'm allowed to ask a question (just disregard if not), don't the alters in the, call it "subsystems", remember the inner world much? I mean, if none of them remembers being wolves with you? Or if they are subsequently both in one subsystem and another? I'm sorry if I shouldn't ask questions, I just find it very interesting

Awesome progress

Please do ask questions! We might not think about the same questions you ask, and so it could help us learn more about ourselves! That, and we love answering questions.

lifelongthing wrote:If I'm allowed to ask a question (just disregard if not), don't the alters in the, call it "subsystems", remember the inner world much? I mean, if none of them remembers being wolves with you? Or if they are subsequently both in one subsystem and another? I'm sorry if I shouldn't ask questions, I just find it very interesting

The way Maiingan explained it to me was the the inner worlds are kinda like, alternate universes. In one "universe", you're a human. In a different "universe", you're a wolf. It's kinda like...a science fiction story, with alternate universes in which you are different things because it's a different universe. It's not strange to you because it's what you are in that universe. (Hope this is making sense...)


Maiingan also explained that memory is going to recall what it is most familiar with. I was only host for a year. Cassandra's been the host for 10-11 years. Her inner world is going to be what's most easily recalled, most often remembered, most known about, etc. Maiingan also explained that it's hard to recall what you forget about. Kat had flashbacks of being a wolf in my world, but only after we had found my old writing about it. And another thing is that apparently, memories related to the different inner worlds can be hard to recall or even "lost" to the inner worlds. As in, you're not going to remember you were a wolf until you're back in my inner world and are a wolf. This is because those memories are tied to that world/place specifically, and in a different world/place, it's not really important in the grand scheme of things if you remember that you were a wolf or not. Everything important is carried over- memories of the outside world if you had them, any development that was done in that world, etc., but anything that's not exactly that important, such as remembering that you were a wolf in my world, is not carried over, because there's no real need for it to be.

It's kinda like...moving to a place where nothing special or memorable really happened, and after time, you forget that you even lived there until you pass by it one day.


I kinda wish Maiingan could just explain it all herself, but that's not her style. She's never been an "on demand" source of information, and she rarely answers clearly. Usually it's in riddles, metaphors, etc., or she'll just simply show you, which can make it hard to put into words later on. She's kinda like the people you see in movies that are like, masters or guides to others, and they'll do annoying stuff like tell you what to do but not what direction to go in, or make you guess as a "test", or make you figure it out yourself, or something like that.

But I hope I was able to make it a bit clearer.


~Kyra

lifelongthing wrote:This is great progress And great work writing it all down and making sense of everything.

Awesome progress

Thank you, Nin(?) and Emma!

~Kyra
Yes, thank you!

~A mixture of us(?)

Thank you for explaining

We have someone like that ourselves; Leo, our system manager. Nothing's an esasy answer with her

Thank you, Nin(?)

Yes Nin You're (all) very welcome

I don't have any questions, I just wanted to say congratulations on these realizations and the progress it stands for!

Thank you!

~Kyra

I thought of another question Obviously you don't have to answer, I'm mostly just thinking about system structure (our own) and trying to make sense of everything and thought of you all.

Since each host has their own inner world, how does the level thing work in the other worlds? Is levels just in Cassandra's inner world then, and doesn't translate into the others (as I've understood the 2nd level are the alters she's become aware of that are really the main alters of someone else's inner world - right?) or is there a reverse situation for the others (e.g in your [Kyra's] level, is the 2nd level the alters that are not your main alters?)?

I'm just asking here. Again, no need to reply to anything you don't feel like

Thank you for sharing! It was interesting to read.

lifelongthing wrote:I thought of another question Obviously you don't have to answer, I'm mostly just thinking about system structure (our own) and trying to make sense of everything and thought of you all.

Since each host has their own inner world, how does the level thing work in the other worlds? Is levels just in Cassandra's inner world then, and doesn't translate into the others (as I've understood the 2nd level are the alters she's become aware of that are really the main alters of someone else's inner world - right?) or is there a reverse situation for the others (e.g in your [Kyra's] level, is the 2nd level the alters that are not your main alters?)?

I'm just asking here. Again, no need to reply to anything you don't feel like

The levels translate in the sense that there are "main" alters for each host, and "secondary" alters. "Main" alters are what we use to call the alters that each host has the easiest time with, including with switching, communication, co-hosting, being co-conscious with, etc. "Secondary" alters are what we use to call the alters that each host has a more difficult time or sometimes can't switch with, communicate with, co-host with, or be co-conscious with. And yes, these change with the different hosts.


"Like when I was host, my "subsystem" contained Luna, sometimes L.C., Kataki/Kat, littles with no name (now only known as "Blank" and "Pretty" so far), sometimes Riyoku/Rain, and Damone. And Maiingan. I don't know if Maiingan is an alter or not. I know there's been speculation that she's our Internalized Self Helper, but now there's talk that she might be more like a Gatekeeper. (That's as much as I know so far, that could be all I "had" or there could be more). However, I was only aware of voices for the most part, and I only really knew of Luna (except she went by L.C.), Kataki/Kat, and sometimes L.C. (who I thought was just a different mood of Luna).

When Cassie was host, her "subsystem" contained Ray, Katherine/Kat, Cassandra, kinda Valera, Dallas, Lynn, Keith/"Little Ryan", "Big Ryan", and Shay. (That's as much as I know so far). But Cassie was only really aware of Katherine/Kat.

When Cassandra was host (back before she joined this site), her "subsystem" contained Kataki/Kat, Riyoku/Rain, Cassie, L.C., sometimes Luna, Rebel, Valera, Dallas, Cassidy, and "Hannibal". (That's as much as I know so far). But Cassandra was only really aware of Kataki/Kat, Riyoku/Rain, L.C., and Cassie."


So, for me, my "main" alters would've been (when I was host), Luna, Kataki/Kat, "Blank", "Pretty", Damone, sometimes L.C., sometimes Riyoku/Rain, and then possibly Maiingan (if she's an alter and not an ISH). That means that my "secondary" alters would've been everyone else in the system (Cassandra, Cassie, Shay, Dallas, etc).


But as far as actual levels go, no, they don't translate over. My world is outside-based, with no floors, nothing to have "levels" (unless you count things like caves or mountains, but we don't really count those). Cassandra's world is inside-based, with hallways, rooms, floors, levels, etc.


Hope that helps. I like your questions! They help us learn/realize and think about things for ourselves.


~Kyra

That makes sense