Multiple inner worlds

Does anyone else feel or know for fact, you have more than one inner world? With separate inner world I mean there are more than one system, and they can not communicate because they don't exist in the same place at all?

I still feel that the parts I am aware of (mostly the teen boys) are from the "made up" and controlled inner world, that used to be my way to think about things, and also a place to escape from reality. My T agrees it certainly has been escaping place. Because the ones who live in that world are real parts with real identities and feelings, I can still learn new things about them, but in a way I can not imagine there being anything that I don't know of, like new parts I am not aware. I was too involved with the creation of that world and I have been very aware of the creation of the newest parts in there.

Parts should only be able to be born subconsciously, but the parts of the inner world I am aware, are not. They have developed under my eyes. I can't decide everything that happens in there, but I certainly can affect to it. It's just that some things don't "fit", I don't want to put them there, because it feels to me they don't belong there.

My way to understand things is to "feel them happening". When I have read things about something I want to think about and understand, that thing kind of went to the inner world and became part of someone, as happening to them. Some things stayed that way, some things were just experiments, and after our mind understood what is it about, it didn't stay to be part of us, but was just taken away, like it never happened. However, I still believe that world started as an imaginary world, but the parts that were suppose to be just imaginary became real parts, because our mind has that ability, because of the early trauma and the way still deal with things by placing it outside of me and using dissociation.

I feel there is a whole another inner world where are all the parts, who have my real childhood memories. The parts who were born subconsciously as a young child, who have my memories (the memories of things that happened to this body) and feelings related to them. The probably also have my forbidden feelings, like anger etc. One of them has once visited my body half a life ago, so I know there are parts, and I don't think she is the only one.

My mind is opening up little by little and I feel that first inner world and unknown parts of it are getting closer to me, or I am finding my way closer to them. I feel I need to "give up" and just let myself to sink in somewhere really deep and I could find them. In a way I feel the other world (the one with my teen boys) is in a way distraction to keep me away from the original ones. I've learned to live with them, I love them, I feel like I don't need anything else. But non of them hold my traumas or share background with me. Their stories are much more violent and rougher than mine, and they are important. I can explain how my life works based on them, I think the original parts are not involved with our daily life the way I could really feel. But there is still so many mes that I know they are there somewhere.

I will talk about this with T, but I'm still asking for if anyone else has separate systems and also I'm thinking of if I am ready to go and find what I know is there, but don't know what exactly it holds inside. I think if I let myself sink into the deepness, it will probably release several parts at the same time, and I have no clue how will that affect. Or should I wait until they start coming here?

I can stay connected with the known system and stay grounded really well, but in order for me to go in the originals' world, I will need to let go and forget reality for a while. Is that always something you should not do, but just stay in here and wait for them?

the way you describe things is not really like we experience things, so it is hard to tell if anything we experience could apply in any way.

we believe we only have one system, but it is divided and there is a part of the inner world that cannot be accessed most of the year, including the parts who 'live' there.
for us, it wouldn't make sense to think of it as different inner worlds or a different system. we just think of it as more dissociated.

Hi Floralie,

That's an interesting question & has me thinking now. Like, my initial reaction was that we just have one inner world. But then I realize, there are actually four separate 'worlds' I could describe in great detail.

The one that I'd have said is our 'real' inner world is actually quite small. It's basically the size of a village, with a handful of small buildings in it, and it's where the insiders (that I know of) all 'live'. It's surrounded by impenetrable forest, and has a sort of portal that leads out to the in-between, and from there you get out front. There's also a deep dark place at the far side opposite the portal, which is a bad place and noone should go in there.

For the most part those in that world are aware of the outside world, though they may never wish to visit or front or whatever. (They may not understand that we're all in the same body / DID system but they mostly know there's an Outside.)

The other three worlds are huge, vast, as big as the outside. But consensus in our system is that those three are more like theatre or movie sets. Not 'real'. And the people in there are also not 'real' but are more like characters. And these people/characters in these three worlds, are unaware of / isolated from / independent of each other, our 'normal' inner world, and the outside world.

We can't be 100% positive that those three other worlds are not 'real' though, and we're not 100% positive that the people in them are 'just' characters. I say that because stuff does go on in those worlds without any of 'us' watching/controling/participating.

Specifically, Stephanie (previous host) would access them and find out stuff had gone on without her involvement. She thought they were all just her own imagination, didn't know about being multiple, and it confused her a lot how these things could happen without her there imagining them.

And, there were times Stephanie was barred from entering those three worlds. Like the 'people' in there could choose to not let her join / access / see them.

And finally, Rebecca's name, appearance, and some other personality traits came from one of the 'characters' in one of those three worlds. And older Violet's name and some of her personality came from a 'character' in another of those worlds.

And the more I think of it, I realize that I couldn't say for sure that Rebecca isn't the same one as in that world. Or that older Violet wasn't originally from that other world. I know V1 had a lot of questions about this when she first took over, but there weren't any really good answers and no way to know for sure.

We also have this thing where alters in our 'outside team' (V1, V2, Viola, and now Me) can't get into the inner world, and yet we can all get to those other three worlds.

As I said, we mostly assumed those three worlds were more like movie sets & characters, but your post is making me wonder. I do agree with birdsong87 that if these are separate inner worlds and other alters, we wouldn't think of them as separate systems. We'd assume just further dissociated. But that's just us, we wouldn't rule it out for anyone else.

Very curious.

Arin

My inner world is kind of one world but has "the void" The void is space between inside and outside. Things can go into the void and be lost - emotions, thoughts, things that happened - and things can come out of the void - the whole inner world basically and probably the parts, dreams, anything really of internal creation.

My alters if meeting to talk as a group meet in the void. It's the middle ground between outside and in plus there they can create what they want - an apple, a chair, a list of something we need to remember.

My inner world, like Viola also described hers, is surrounded on one side by a deep dense forest. You go over or through the forest to get to the void to get to the outside. On the other side is the sea, rocky cliffs and beach. The castle is in the middle of the forest where Sarah lives and the village is through the forest towards the sea and going right up to the sea.

I see the alters listed below as our only alters and the other people living in the village as pretend too. I don't really want to consider they're not pretend but maybe they're not. I'm being shown the old fashioned fisherman who I was going to write a book about, I started it but my computer was accidently thrown out when I moved. His story was that he went to tell Tara that her husband wasn't dead and was infact living across the sea. Tara lives on the edge of the forest in a cottage. To me they're pretend but they can have complex, completely imaginary stories. He's fishing. I thought his story would end in Tara falling in love with him on the journey but apparently she's across the sea with her husband and her cottage is empty at the moment. Anyway enough of that.

Across the sea is more magical realm (imaginary) than inner world. There's mermaids in the sea the further you go across and there's magical creatures over the other side, good and bad, fairies, dragons everything. It's more like a story world. I had a really vivid imagination as a child. There's where the witches live too, along the coast. There's witches dotted about. I loved witches. Witches were never "bad" to me as a child.

One time after a trauma I hallucinated that all the fairies and gnomes and toadstools were all around me. I could visually see them. Was weird but was a very pleasant hallucination. I didn't tell anyone because I knew it'd be seen as "crazy" and I knew I was hallucinating. It was actually really fantasticle. So fantastical I can't actually imagine it now. It's like my whole self got sent across the sea, I couldn't cope with the trauma. I was already in a hospital so safe and after a few days rest I was back with reality and ok. No meds, just rest and eating properly.

So I would say I have one inner world but there's boundaries - the sea, the forest, the void is both a crossing, a boundary and a place. But they're all linked.

I put most stuff down to vivid imagination. I still do I suppose. I accept that I have alters because I have to or I'd have constant chaos. The alters named. I think they all come from this side of the sea. Karen is a Wiccan though. She will use spell craft but doesn't meet with other wiccans anymore irl because of Beth being a Christian and not comfortable with it. I was gonna say I don't know if she meets with internal witches, but I do know, she does.

When Karen had trauma and was asleep for 3 years approx when she woke up all the witches were looking for her and she was hiding. They were angry about something. She had to go to a witches council. Someone hid her in their house, a big white turreted house by the sea, until a deal had been negotiated and Karen wouldn't be punished to severely for whatever it was, possibly disappearing for years. To me she was asleep in a snow white type glass coffin. No one knew if she was going to wake up or not, everyone was sad. She woke up and the witches were mad. I'm not exactly sure why.

Anyway, sorry, I got distracted talking about internal goings on. I had and still have a highly vivid imagination. That's how I see it. I respect the whole internal world. It's real in my psyche. But it's not the external world. I have to live in the external world. I believe the internal world can be happening when I'm asleep, I don't need to be privy to it all, messages come in the form of dreams if the internal world has observed something important externally that I've missed. Occasionally I know what's going on like when Karen woke up.

The twins have a whole separate world. Created by them from the void. That I can't accurately describe. They have activities and distractions. I see it like the place where pinoccio goes and gets turned into a donkey but maybe it's not that bad. That world, their world, is not linked to what I see as the natural internal world. It doesn't even exist anywhere near the original internal world. It's a branch off of the void if its anything. They have a door into it, the original internal world just starts from the void.

The twins control who goes in and out of that world. And they control that world. It's not got people like the original internal world. It's an empty playground but not empty as in nothing is there. It's full of all sorts of things that they like to do, they'd like to be real but aren't real - rocket cars for example. But it's not got people. They let the alters in sometimes. It's a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to stay there - that's how I feel about it but they like it. They don't like the natural, original internal world. They can't shape it or control it like they can their world. Mandy lives with them. She likes it. She goes to the original internal world too, she lives outside also sometimes - she was out earlier, she says funny stuff and makes up nonsense like the twins. They don't trust the original internal world to look after Mandy, they think she'd get lost or she'd grow up. Or that if she didn't grow up she'd see others growing up and be sad. Mandy knows how old her body is, she knows she has a child's mind, it doesn't bother her. I think the twins are over protective of her in some ways and in others they aren't looking after her properly. But to be fair Mandys happy.

So I do have a separate internal world. - Sorry it took me a long time to get to answering your question. If I didn't answer this long way I would of said I only had one internal world. It's making me want to go back there talking about it. Thankfully it's sleeping time.

I am still trying to figure out how all this inner world stuff in our case is working.

What I now so far is that we have a consciously created a safe haven. It is some sort of wild garden between a dense forest and a cliff. Several parts have tiny house or homes in this garden, on the cliff or in the trees.
Below this place is the realm of the fairies and other other non-human parts.It did exist long before we consciously created the garden and some parts believed that this place is actually real and they do live there.
They both are connected by magic gateways and their inhabitants can communicate so I would consider it as "one world."

But I recently learned from a newly awakened part, that there is also some sort of parallel inner world of our outside world. Like an alternate timeline. She did live there in the last past six years and now has to sort out which stuff happened in the outer world and which inside. Seems to be quite confusing.
It was not possible to communicate between her world and the innerworld I described before, but I am not sure if this counts as a "propper inner world" because it is so similar to the real world and was only inhabited by one part, as far as I know.

Muninn wrote:I am still trying to figure out how all this inner world stuff in our case is working.

What I now so far is that we have a consciously created a safe haven. It is some sort of wild garden between a dense forest and a cliff. Several parts have tiny house or homes in this garden, on the cliff or in the trees.
Below this place is the realm of the fairies and other other non-human parts.It did exist long before we consciously created the garden and some parts believed that this place is actually real and they do live there.
They both are connected by magic gateways and their inhabitants can communicate so I would consider it as "one world."

But I recently learned from a newly awakened part, that there is also some sort of parallel inner world of our outside world. Like an alternate timeline. She did live there in the last past six years and now has to sort out which stuff happened in the outer world and which inside. Seems to be quite confusing.
It was not possible to communicate between her world and the innerworld I described before, but I am not sure if this counts as a "propper inner world" because it is so similar to the real world and was only inhabited by one part, as far as I know.

So you have a forest too and also a magical realm.

The parallel one you speak of: last night I went to sleep directly after posting here. My whole dreaming last night was is a place like that. This world but slightly shifted over. Everything was pretty much the same except gravity was slightly less and floating was normal. It's where I pretty much always go when dreaming. I don't know if it counts as an "inner world" or if it's just the normal place of everyone's dreams.

The parallel one you speak of: last night I went to sleep directly after posting here. My whole dreaming last night was is a place like that. This world but slightly shifted over. Everything was pretty much the same except gravity was slightly less and floating was normal. It's where I pretty much always go when dreaming. I don't know if it counts as an "inner world" or if it's just the normal place of everyone's dreams.

In my own dream the world is also sometimes slightly different, but also sometimes totally foreign, but I never considered this dream-worlds to be persistent inner worlds. I usually also know that I am dreaming, or as soon as I am awake I know that it was a dream.

The inner other parallel world of this other part was persistent in her experience, as far as I understand. And she doesn't think that it was a dream, but that she was there, while she was not active in the body.

But of course dreams and inner worlds might have a lot in common, and maybe it is only a matter of how you call it and it is actually something quite similar. In the end everything goes on in the brain of one physical human entity.

Muninn wrote:

The parallel one you speak of: last night I went to sleep directly after posting here. My whole dreaming last night was is a place like that. This world but slightly shifted over. Everything was pretty much the same except gravity was slightly less and floating was normal. It's where I pretty much always go when dreaming. I don't know if it counts as an "inner world" or if it's just the normal place of everyone's dreams.

In my own dream the world is also sometimes slightly different, but also sometimes totally foreign, but I never considered this dream-worlds to be persistent inner worlds. I usually also know that I am dreaming, or as soon as I am awake I know that it was a dream.

The inner other parallel world of this other part was persistent in her experience, as far as I understand. And she doesn't think that it was a dream, but that she was there, while she was not active in the body.

But of course dreams and inner worlds might have a lot in common, and maybe it is only a matter of how you call it and it is actually something quite similar. In the end everything goes on in the brain of one physical human entity.

Yes, I think dream world and inner world have alot in common but the dream world feels like it exists on a different plane or frequency. I do think the dream world and inner world can cross paths or mingle or merge temporarily. I think you may be right and it's only the labels that create distinction between them. But the dream world seems more grey or lacks light than the inner world but that's probably just me.