What does switching and not being out feel like?

I'm pretty much certain that i have DID but i only seem to switch in my sleep so i still don't know what it's like not being out or switching... (or even how to switch) please can someone help this noob?

Feels like i'm playing pokemon again...

Kat: I think this varies from system to system. I can't actually see the Inner World when I'm not out, but I can talk to who's out. I'm sort of blind/deaf when I'm in the Inner World. The other alters can see it and interact in it, though. Switching in our system requires the effort of both the alters involved. If one doesn't do his/her side of the work needed to switch, the switch just won't happen. The alter has to really be eager to come out to override this and force the body to switch to that alter.

I will say though that as you get more experienced with your DID (if you do decide that you have it), you'll figure out how your system works and you'll get used to it. It took me a year or so to do that.

thanks now i feel like i/we really do have DID... anyway, this explains my selective mutism and amnesia whenever i see a certain guy... i must have a protector/mute alter XD

It's odd, but it's not straight forward for us, or not for me anyway. Not clear cut like "now I am in the body and bam! I am in our dreamworld."

Instead sometimes it's just a.. void. Where I can think but am unaware of time passing. And in any case time is variable inside. It slows and speeds up and dream logic applies. I know some Systems have very true to reality internal worlds, but ours is quite clearly a construct. Details can be changed as and when. If Poe wants a swing set I merely think one up. Though back in the day we used to build things the hard way. One house we merely imagined, another we built, taking a good long while and hard work to do so. I think my awareness that the internal world is "not real", that it's "just" a dream plays a role in the way I see the internal world now.

Once upon a time it was more my home, more real than the "real world" but then I thought I was imaginary too back then. Not that I feel so darn real these days, I just know I have miles of reality on that world of ours.

So I guess it's not clear cut in my case. When I am not Out I might just be asleep, losing time but not exactly living in the meantime either. Other times I can be Out, in the Body but still aware of what is happening in the internal world (one foot in each world basically) and other times yet I watch the real world while somebody else walks us through it. I am the Passenger..

There's a lot of confusion and crossover between states of consciousness for me because usually I am present on some level, but I don't know who is in control and everything blurs together, and I don't know if I am talking or someone else is talking often until after I have done or said something and I don't know why I did so. Sometimes it's clearer and sometimes it's fuzzier. I never really considered that the inner worlds I experience could be dissociative as I was diagnoised with schizophrenia about ten years ago and always equated that with psychosis.

I really struggled for a long time with the feeling that this place wasn't real and that I was unconscious somewhere being trapped in this place, being the dream. The derealisation and the signs to go along with it were and still get to be very intense; it's only my maintenance of questioning and upholding a kind of agnosticism towards my experiences that allows me to remain objective.

*trigger warning for dissociation*
It can be daydreaming so intensely that this reality is like a picture on a sheet of glass, this thin slice of shifting moments that are impossible to interact with, like trying to be two dimensional. You can't fit yourself onto a piece of paper. It's a moving wall that exists there but everything else is playing out so vividly inside that it defocuses completely.

or i can enter dreamstates that are fully unconscious but acidic in their vivacity. they are hyper-detailed and seem more real than being awake.

skin wrote:There's a lot of confusion and crossover between states of consciousness for me because usually I am present on some level, but I don't know who is in control and everything blurs together, and I don't know if I am talking or someone else is talking often until after I have done or said something and I don't know why I did so. Sometimes it's clearer and sometimes it's fuzzier.
[..]

it's only my maintenance of questioning and upholding a kind of agnosticism towards my experiences that allows me to remain objective.

This. So this

This thread is SO incredibly helpful. If you don't mind a "mini-hijack" for a second, when in these states, how do you find it capable to put in a work day? Or how do you keep this from happening at work? I am very curious about this...

They are actually pretty debilitating; I haven't worked for a long time because I've been periodically so incapacitated. I freelance as an artist where possible but my artistic ability is tied in to specific mind states so that can be variable which makes it hard to find work as my reliablity shifts around. My passion is writing but I experience the same problems so work somewhat crawls or I have a day or a week here and there where I am regularly writing, then am unable to continue, which is pretty painful; I just want to finish something.

I bet your artwork is marvelous. The reason I ask is that my BF used to have a terrible time putting in a complete work week, and due to the stressful nature of his career, would be better working two or three days a week. Of course, it didn't help that littles wanted to stay home and play.

It was always incredible to me that he could do this type of work without having a switch take place at work.

Now that another has taken over, the exhaustion is gone, and he puts in tremendous hours and commutes. But everything else that was lovely and nice is gone.

This thread is SO incredibly helpful. If you don't mind a "mini-hijack" for a second, when in these states, how do you find it capable to put in a work day? Or how do you keep this from happening at work? I am very curious about this...

I would say that the days that I do tend to my career I do not mind switching. I mind switching that is not beneficial. We are several alters who do different things during those days and try to work together. We record some of what we do so that we better can keep track of everything. It's more about communicating and working together than not switching. Tending to our career with only one alter would not be viable for us as we have several who are most skilled at different parts of the job. This alleviates some stress as well because we do switch and different parts can help different parts of the inside understand why this is important, where we are, that we are safer now and so forth.

So it does depend on how you work it out.