#memory barriers

At syscovery and for about 2-2½ years after, fronting was typically a very blendy experience. Separate people but thoughts and feelings and identity mixed a lot if there were two or more people fronting at a time. We typically chose to front one at a time instead.

Now, we're polyconscious, and first of all front isn't blendy and one person can retain it completely, with some specific exceptions, being subsystems with different switching structures, some people accidentally soaking front up while we're sleeping [if also sleeping in headspace, like in the same bed, low guard high proximity], a small percentage of front being left in the previous person accidentally, two shards of the same person being too close to each other [if one is fronting] and also we can choose to split front 50/50 if we meed quick back and forth to, for example, record a conversation out loud [not necessary for fully internal communication], or write dialogue between the two people's source characters in a fanfic. These are things that can happen for us but each has only happened once or twice, minus subsystem switching [which is usually just unintentional rather than blendy] and we don't even need to take precautions against them either.

But aside from subsystem mechanics and intentional blending/cocon, being polyconscious in front, for us, means that thoughts and feelings don't carry over from cofronters. Now that it doesn't result in blending, whoever's fronting usually has at least one other person in the room with it, for company, assistance, and as someone to switch with if it needs a quick out. These are usually the same people, we have fronting groups. I am typically and currently with my wives. Most fronting groups are partners and/or family.

I can lay in bed holding my wives but the close proximity doesn't mean I feel what they feel or hear their thoughts. Feelings rarely blend for us anymore, and the lack of emotional carry-over was actually the very first thing we noticed when switching over to polyconscious.

Lucifer was teasingly flirting with Odysseus, he didn't like it and told him to stop, but Lucifer assumed that he was just being stubborn and not actually bothered, because he wasn't able to pick up on how he actually felt [important to note one of the very first interactions in front was Raine flirting with / joking about dating C-137 who was just being stubborn / denying just to deny and they're now a very happily married power couple with over a dozen kids].

There is a small possibility of thought bleeding but it's very different from how it used to be. When we were cephaconscious, we would simply hear each others thoughts whether we wanted to or not. Now, fronter doesn't receive any input if we're just chillin, but if we're actively paying attention to each other there is a kind of intuitive understanding of what the other person is thinking. Collectively we think in words, sometimes with accompanying pictures, but when this happens it is only abstract concepts, that can sometimes be translated into words or pictures if intentional on the cofronters part or focused on enough by the fronter, but it is generally just an Understanding, and typically only of what the cofronter next plans to do to the fronter [full disclosure this 'paying attention to each other' is usually sex] rather than just, Whatever.

Cofronters can also tune in to listen to both external stimuli/activity and also the fronter's thoughts, but it typically doesn't, just out of respect for privacy I guess?

But as far as memory barriers, we have no memory barriers. We do have headspace amnesia and source amnesia, which are slowly getting better. But we do not and never have had memory barriers between fronters. If someone does or thinks or feels something in front, every fronter after them will remember with as much ease as the individual who experienced it. There is something to be said about the clarity of processing the memory [like why someone felt a certain way].

Or being able to recall certain details although now that I think about it that's specific to one guy's exotrauma so very likely it's that he tunes it out himself which makes it difficult for us to retain it. He does always forget his uncles' names, forgetting trauma even after remembering is definitely a thing that happens for him, so, outlier.

We do have memory issues. Our ability to retain new information has been declining for a few years. I [ironically] don't remember if we think it's dissociation or C-PTSD or Schizophrenia onset thought disorganisation or worsening ADHD or all of the above idfk but, new information, hard to remember, retention? What's that? If we don't write it down and reread it and repeat and commit it to the Script it might as well not even exist.

Even still, we have no memory barriers. To the best of the brain's ability, we remember who did or thought or felt or said what when where how and why, whether the current fronter is the same who is irrelevant to the presence [or potential lack of presence ]of the memory.

I do also remember, we used to struggle to remember who did so and whatnot but that just slowly stopped being an issue sometimes in like January I think idk [first noticed lack of emotional bleeding in July of last year].

We seriously relate to this, anon… we’re sorry to hear that you’re struggling with staying safe due to dissociative barriers! We get it that it can be difficult to get in the habit of journalling. Our own system has a very fragmented way of keeping a log of our thoughts and actions (spread across multiple physical journals, Google docs, notes on our phone, Tumblr blogs, and a private discord server). It makes keeping up with each other really difficult, but we’ve sort of learned how to go around and check on everything every once in a while to see what everyone’s been up to. This combined with in-system meetings are the only ways we can effectively communicate with everyone!

We hope things get better and easier for you soon! We hope that y’all can get the help you need in order to decrease those barriers and start interacting with each other more regularly. In the meantime, if others find their own ways to communicate, we hope y’all can get in the habit of checking up on their different methods rather than trying to keep all your system’s communication in one physical location. We hope you can find something that works well for y’all!