Average Daily Life

From The Inmara
Portrait of Brenna and Gesedege. Note that Gesedege's horns may vary depending on their mood.

From what we've been able to observe from dreams and ways that our headmates communicate with us when we're conscious, the daily life experiences of members of the Inmara are quite diverse.

However, there are some commonalities.

The following headings are organized conceptually, rather than alphabetically, to build on each other.

Headspaces

Each system member has what the plural community calls a headspace. It is essentially a recurring dreamscape, and a small personal section of the system's greater communal mind palace that makes the Sunspot what it is.

These spaces seem to consist of memories of places and things that have meaning to the individual system member. However, they can be transformed and elaborated upon in time as each headmate interacts with others or with the outer world. Actual dream interactions give us each an opportunity to get new ideas to use in elaborating on our own headspaces.

Some system members are also active daydreamers and will deliberately create new spaces for themselves. And sometimes even help others to build and develop their spaces.

Even so, headspaces are deeply personal and integral to each person's self schema.

Groupings

Besides the relationships described below, we also have pairings and partnerships across the hemispherical divide. Tetcha and Morde, for instance, are an example of a dragon and a girl who work very closely together.

Because of the way that we reproduce, and of how we each seem to reside in physical sections of our brain related to our individual skills and talents, we tend to develop groupings of similar identity.

Examples of such groups include The Jonathans, The Komrades, The Witches, and multiple Liaisons of the same fictional character as portrayed by different actors.

Such groups may actually share headspaces, in fact. Or their headspaces are connected conceptually through memory associations that manifest as either magic-like rituals of teleportation through thought or as actual doors, portals, passageways, or landmarks.

It's clear that adjacent headmates interact with each other quite a lot, but can invite anyone in the system to visit their own headspace.

We have visited several of these community clusters repeatedly in our dreams and watched them develop.

Physics

The physics of our inworld has a profound effect on our culture. Especially since it is so different from the outworld.

Most human beings have a sense of how wild and capricious dreamworld physics can be, often following narrative rules or superstitions, and our inworld is no different in that respect. Sometimes the physics we've learned from the outworld dictate how events happen, and sometimes things seem to follow the fantastical physics of magic or science fiction. And sometimes something completely new and seemingly inexplicable will happen.

However, by "physics" in this section, we really mean the underlying laws that seem to govern how and when that changes.

Since early childhood our dreams at night have been consistently lucid, but with limits.

Whomever is dreaming almost always knows that they are dreaming, and that as "the dreamer" they can at a whim decide to do things differently. They can choose to change their body, fly, breathe fire, alter the landscape around them, and any number of things they might imagine.

However, if there is another system member in the dream with them, that system member can also exert their will in the same way.

And most dreams involved three or more headmates at a time. There might be a group acting as The Bridge Crew and "consciously" dreaming, typically with one dream body reflecting the front runner's identity. But every person, animal, or monster encountered in a dream has so far proven to be another headmate.

And, due to this dynamic, dream interactions have most often devolved into a form of super powered magical Calvinball. In fact, we have even identified whose will is being exerted on what and have ended countless dreams in actual arguments over what should happen.

There is considerable reason to believe that these types of interactions occur in our subconscious psyche while our body is awake. We have felt them happening just below the surface, and sometimes have been able to observe them.

If the average member of the Inmara system experiences the majority of their life in such a dream-like state, then it is no wonder that when we surface to front and control our body we are often bewildered by the static and ridgid nature of the outworld and the persistence of gravity.

This also plays heavily into how we relate to each other and with outside people.

Activities

Our personal inworld activities seem to be governed in a similar way to how we naturally build our headspaces.

We are essentially dreaming when we're not fronting, and when not interacting with other headmates for the express purpose of creating the conscious psyche or managing bodily functions, we tend to do dreamlike things most of the time.

This means that the average system member spends the bulk of their time doing familiar things within their own headspace. Sometimes that's practicing their Arts. Often, it's interacting with their direct neighbors in some way.

Most interactions between headmates probably resemble the dreams we can remember. The majority of which appear to be role playing exercises and games. Some dreams are nothing more than discussions between a group of headmates about how to manage things such as internal politics or outworld affairs, much like a council meeting. But most dreams resemble the dreams reported by other human beings, with reenactments of memories mixed with metaphorical symbolism and fantasies. This can include anything from making breakfast or organizing a potluck dinner, to taking a test while only in underwear, to fighting demons with a finger laser.

In the outworld, we have taken to playing make believe with others and found ourselves addicted to table top role playing games. When involved with such activities, we feel most comfortable. We forget the culture shock of interacting with the rest of the outworld, and feel at home. We feel similarly when reading a novel, especially when it comes to the play of themes and symbolism.

This tells us that we are probably on the right track in assuming that the myriad of internal interactions unseen by any given Bridge Crew are actually quite similar to the interactions and dreams we have witnessed.

Cycles

We are governed by cycles. But there are conflicts that arise with that.

True to one of the stereotypes of autism, repetition is often comforting to us. Though, another person's repetition can be unbearable. Just as tapping our own foot might be soothing while someone else tapping their foot is unbearable, another system member's repetitive habits or cyclical thoughts can be infuriating.

Also, due to trauma, many of us have been driven to the habit of rumination. Without outside stimuli, we will worry a problem over and over again, looking for a solution in every permutation, trying to subtly alter the parameters if we can but often failing.

This is where interaction between system members becomes critical. Because, while soothing repetition is important for self regulation of emotions (and we do have separate emotions simultaneously), breaking traumatic rumination through new perspectives and ideas is a huge relief to everyone.

Being stuck in a rumination loop is unpleasant and sometimes even traumatizing itself. So, we have some system members who take it upon themselves to seek out ruminators and help them. Sometimes they are not gentle in doing this, but often it entails entering the ruminator's headspace and joining the cycle with them. The helper must learn what the problem is by repeating it a few times themselves. Then, they will eventually insert their own take into the next iteration, a new action to take or a refusal to accept the physic or parameters of the situation.

We have had numerous dreams like this. Sometimes they have even ended in lectures. And, as stated in above sections, we have observed such interactions between other system members occurring below the surface while otherwise awake.

Finally, we know that we ruminate because any given frontrunner or an entire Bridge Crew may be prone to it, and from the ages of 16 to 24, compulsive ruminating dominated and interrupted our daily life and gave us a great deal of distress.

It makes sense that our thought patterns and behavior while awake and in control of our body would reflect our internal behavior and experiences. Especially in the ways that they don't fit very well into outworld life.

But also, due to the prevalence of recurring dreams as well as our outworld problem solving technique of repeating a failed task with minor variations until we learn all it's subtleties, we strongly suspect that the majority of us live our lives repeating sets of very similar scenes between each other, and rotating through different sets depending on the demands of the rest of the system and our neighbors' requests.

This may seem like a version of Hell to a neurotypical person. In some cases, such as with those of us stuck in rumination, it is. But for most of us, it is a great comfort, soothing, and empowering, because we are usually dealing with familiar things and honing our knowledge and skills with them. And through this, we avoid adversity, so long as we don't get stuck in another system member's cycle.

Places in the psyche, like the Bridge or a dream, that act as a crossroads of communication between all sections of the psyche have a tendancy by their nature of exposing us to the irritating cycles of other headmates. And that is where distress tends to occur. One person's fantasy becoming another's recurring nightmare.

This conflict is common enough for us to note it, but now under enough control and rare enough that as a group we are not distressed enough to seek help. Instead, we look for ways to evaluate whether something should be ignored as self soothing or treated as rumination. And we do not find that the Bridge Crew (those in our conscious psyche) are overly burdened by this task.

Socialization

Given all of the above, socialization of the average system member seems to follow a predictable pattern.

They are born from some of another headmates' memories and memes, either actively created to be a particular kind of person, or splitting off to adapt to a situation that their parent is ill equipped to fit into. This colors a system member's identity and perspective, and how they will interact with stimuli and their own memories.

Then they will start to cycle through what they know, reinforcing their memories and identity, learning what they love and hate and how to solve the key problems of their Arts.

They will initially receive most input and direction from their parent, but neigbors and siblings will start to interact due to the physics of association within a psyche. If someone thinks of someone else's name or face due to a memory, for instance, that person will be drawn into the thinker's headspace. Other trains of thought will do this as well. Anything that another headmate identifies with will tend to draw them into interaction.

Eventually, a system member may find themselves to be part of a larger community, one of our Subcultures, and participating in their regular group activities.

Interpersonal interactions tend to mimic outworld rituals, scripts, and behaviors, but the actual communication between headmates is in the whole cycle itself. We communicate with each other by sharing memories, emotions, and intent. A scene will be played out, and a set of emotions and intents will be shared over the top of that scene.

These groups of system members, being derived from an ancestor involved in system management, a Ktletaccete, will then be given memories and thoughts to process by that parent. And in that way, everyone becomes involved in providing input into how we as an entire system live our collective life. And this is also how every system member becomes associated with and connected to the Bridge.

Most choose to stay subconscious, content to live predictable lives where they are mostly in control, powerful feeling, and safe. At least, according to their perspectives.

Some, however, get called to the Bridge. Especially liaisons of fictional characters who are empowered and given an emotional rush by their source material. But also direct descendants of Senior Officers, who tend to share similar Arts with theur parents. These few will get a chance to decide if they like fronting, and to compare their experiences and expectations of the inworld with the harsh reality of the outworld.

The seeming authority and awareness of being part of the Bridge Crew is sometimes enough to bring some of us back to it. But none of us are happy with exposure to the outworld. It is painful, and alien, and we'd all rather be dreaming. Still, those of us who stay on the Bridge regularly become used to it and fall into its rituals and habits, and become emotionally invested in being Bridge Crew. We become proud of our identities, and of representing the system. And we all eventually see the importance of making sure our body is safe and survives and that our internal family is allowed to thrive. After all, external stimuli is how we grow and become who we are.