Explaining The Inner World

So like several ppl we've talked to kinda get hung up on the "reality" of inner worlds and experiences inside.

I like mentioned playing a game and how Kitten and I can't be on the same team for some (like Taboo or Pictionary) cuz of our co-con (we never knew that's what it was called until recently) like brain-sharing... we just "know" what each other are thinking. And the person was like "well it's not like really playing the game" or "they don't actually play a game" (that one was a comment to Zor about the same topic, and from our T at that).

How do you guys explain the inner world to people so they like get it? That they can like understand that, for most things, it's like every bit as real as like outside is... cuz other than maybe a surreal feeling (the more we're out the more we notice it when inside) or less "detailed" in some ways... it IS just as real. But IDK how to like explain it in ways ppl can like understand or make sense of.

Anyone have any experience with this and found a good analogy or successful way to like break through that clueless thing ppl seem to have?

And YES, I know we are under no obligation to explain, justify, etc... but this is for cases when we WANT TO and the person just struggles to "get it". For cases we DON'T wanna explain it, we just don't. Usually saying something like "It just is what it is, works how it does, don't worry about it."

{\Pixie/}

Hi Pixie,

I think the inner world is real because it has real consequences. I mean it makes us act in some ways and not in others. It's just as real as thoughts or feelings. Like you can love somebody and that's real. Then you act like you love them and that's real. If the feeling wasn't real then how did it come out and actually do things?

Iain (with help from Morgan)

We know it's real, but like how do we tell OTHER people, like singletons, about it? How do we explain to them so they can understand what it is?

{\Pixie/}

Hey Pixie,

I dunno if you can? Like I mean, if they don't get it, if they don't wanna open up their mind and listen and accept it, then there's not gonna be anything you can do to convince them?

Like, I dunno if singlets can even have an inner world? So its something they have no way to grasp. Like the closest thing maybe they can think of would be daydreaming or imagination, and to them thats not real.

We kinda argued with our T for a bit over this stuff, like for aw hile she wouldn't really accept that inner world stuff was as real as outside stuff? Like she kept saying inner world stuff wasn't real, cos it wasn't the outside world stuff. It took us a few weeks for her to finally accept that it's just as real for those of us who're in there.

Viola

One way I found is to say it's a metaphor used by the brain to make sense of what happen inside.
It's not literally like the outside world, but it has an impact on us and the outside world has an impact on it. Feelings are real and actions have consequences, even if the "images" aren't real in the "outside world" common meaning.
So two alters meeting inside would be two neuronal pathways connecting, but the brain can't understand itself like that, it needs to create an image of the connection and a scene of what happens during the connection. The scene is has real as the connection, it's just another way to understand it.

A singleton friend of mine compared it to Narnia, inside the closet - the closet being the body. None of the stuff had happened in the "outside" world, but still, the children were changed by their experiences, and they were real to them.

To another friend, it makes them think about that scene in Harry Potter, when he's "killed" and has a whole talk with Dumbledore, which ends with :
“Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

In Supernatural, there's a tone of example of mental space looking like the outside world, with actions having consequences, interaction between two minds, etc.
(This show is filled with so many possibilities to explain one-way or two-way co-cons, co-presence, being locked up, switches, memory loss, cooperation, etc. it's surreal...).

I like to think of it as Doctor Who's TARDIS : another dimension inside a box, with kind of its own conscious, can change its rooms and corridors at will, travel through time and space so nothing happens chronologically... but the only person I know who also watch Doctor Who has DID too

It's really difficult I think for people to grasp it who don't have one. To me it's so real sometimes if it collides too much without outside I can't work out what was inside and what was outside. Especially when it's been difficult times and I've lost alot of time.

For example Karen outwardly joined an escort agency to be an escort. I know that definitely happened. There was a second phone, she told someone. But then it stopped at that point, she didn't work as an escort. But it didn't or didn't internally and it not stopping at that point is so real when I'm shown it I have to try to think back to that time if it was logically possible that it didn't stop then. That's how real the inner world can be.

On the other side of that some inner world is so fantasy - mermaids, magic etc that it's clearly not real and yet it is still real because it is fully experienced. You can feel the rain, feel the wind, feel the rush of air as you fly through the sky. Still completely real but you can easily logically know it's internal.

The best way I think is if a person has ever had a really vivid dream as a child. I had many. Where you can fly or you have magic powers. I loved my dreams as a child because they were such an escape I used to love being able to sleep because of it. Even if it was a disaster dream like a plane crash I'd end up flying away from it and it's feel so real. That's the only thing I can think of that people may have experienced that don't have inner worlds that is as close to it as you could get - very vivid childhood dreams.

Dwelt wrote:One way I found is to say it's a metaphor used by the brain to make sense of what happen inside.
It's not literally like the outside world, but it has an impact on us and the outside world has an impact on it. Feelings are real and actions have consequences, even if the "images" aren't real in the "outside world" common meaning.
So two alters meeting inside would be two neuronal pathways connecting, but the brain can't understand itself like that, it needs to create an image of the connection and a scene of what happens during the connection. The scene is has real as the connection, it's just another way to understand it.

A singleton friend of mine compared it to Narnia, inside the closet - the closet being the body. None of the stuff had happened in the "outside" world, but still, the children were changed by their experiences, and they were real to them.

To another friend, it makes them think about that scene in Harry Potter, when he's "killed" and has a whole talk with Dumbledore, which ends with :
“Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

In Supernatural, there's a tone of example of mental space looking like the outside world, with actions having consequences, interaction between two minds, etc.
(This show is filled with so many possibilities to explain one-way or two-way co-cons, co-presence, being locked up, switches, memory loss, cooperation, etc. it's surreal...).

I like to think of it as Doctor Who's TARDIS : another dimension inside a box, with kind of its own conscious, can change its rooms and corridors at will, travel through time and space so nothing happens chronologically... but the only person I know who also watch Doctor Who has DID too

I really love that Narnia example. That is sooooo brilliant! Thank you. I'll remember that and try and use that analogy.

{\Pixie/}