#thedaemonpage

Copied off the below TDF thread, but I thought it’d be interesting to post here too; just a series of our personal milestones for how Theta developed over time (or, in our case, somewhat ran into the world already developed).

Check out the current list of milestones here (it’d be really interesting to read other people’s; and totally feel free to add your own milestones):

http://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=25882

2007 - 2008

First Projection + First Words + First Presence - This one is fairly self explanatory. I found TDF and projected Theet - originally as an arctic fox. I cannot actually remember exactly what his first words were, but it all came pretty much together as a package.

Full Presence - This...in a none weird way (or in a weird way, depending on how you look at it), didn’t really ever feel like something I had much of a choice in. As long as he has existed he has been pretty present. There are certainly moments where I’ve not been aware of him, but for the vast bulk of any given day he’ll be in some form present; either just in my head, or as a projected form.

Dialogue Speech - We started out speaking very strictly in dialogue, with a strong sense of “my voice” and “his voice”. I think my internal speak was always very dialogue based beforehand, so Theet pretty naturally took the role of the “other voice”, I guess.

Independent Form Change - Pretty early we realised the need for a smaller form for when we were in crowded spaces, and so Theet adopted a white ferret form he would jump to. His form changes have never been in my hands, really; it’s always just been what he feels like when.

Solid shape - I pretty much projected Theet with a solid shape straight off the bat. I had a poster of an arctic fox which we modelled that form on, and I watched some white ferret videos. We pretty much stuck just to those forms, and those were fairly easy to project as solid shapes.

Full Projection - When we started projecting we projecting pretty much all the time. I think that was partly cause his voice just didn’t go away (ever) and I projected him alongside it, and I had the poster to remind me every time I woke up, and also a necklace which reminded me of him.

Full Voice - This also happened pretty much straight away? Theet’s always had his own voice, really.

Solid Personality + None Directed Personality - Similarly to voice, Theet has always had a pretty solid personality. He’s changed somewhat over the years, obviously, and I think it’s maybe interesting to note that his personality when he first came into existence was something of a response to where I was at in my life. I’d had a really rough year, been pretty badly bullied and didn’t really have any friends. Theet was therefore this quite angry dae with a strong “we don’t need anyone” attitude. He’s changed and grown from that point, as any of us would over just, well, time. We’ve never directed it; he just grew and developed as he did, and alongside me growing and developing. We never did this intentionally, but I think there was a reality that different aspects of us got “put” for want of a better term in me and others got put in him. It allowed us to hold a lot more within us, I think.

Emotional Differentiation - So when I first discovered TDF I was pretty depressed and just generally not in a great place. I was sort of on my way to recovery, but Theet came in with a very different attitude and sentiment to me towards the whole thing; with a lot more drive and anger and such. To an extent that might have been born out of need, but it was also I think born out of what I was like deep down, and the desires and drives and determination that I had. There are plenty of times now where me and Theet will be in quite different headspaces (and sometimes I will work through something and then he will need to work through the same thing but afterwards). Our attitudes to things aren’t wildly different now, but it’s not rare for us to be in different emotional space at a given time.

Double Focus - This didn’t happen straight away, but maybe after the first couple of months of projecting I was able to keep it up while doing something or talking to someone.

First Deviation - I wish I could remember the first time that this happened, but I do not. So I’m just sort of guessing that this was in the first year; I’m pretty sure it was.

Soul Companion - This is a sweet one. I don’t really know when the first time was, but I think it was in the first couple of months.

Daemon Talks To Another Daemon + Daemon Considers Another Daemon Their Friend - Including this here primarily cause of Ayra, Matt’s daemon. She and Theet used to speak on MSN (remember when that was a thing) a bunch and very much has their own relationship aside from me and Matt’s relationship.

2009 - 2010

First Argument - I think this mostly arose after I was sort of mentally healthier and more inclined to stand up for myself rather than just somewhat blindly doing what Theet was pushing to do. We don’t argue a lot, although we bicker pretty much all the time, so I suppose it depends what you count as an argument, but I’m guessing it was in around this period.

Helping Hand - After around a year of Theet being around, he really started getting involved with helping with school work and exams and such. In 2009 I was also in a play, which I remember being the first time Theet really participated with helping with stuff such as line learning and not laughing while on stage.

First Weight Sensation + Vague Weight - This was something that took a while for us to develop; it was around this time I could first feel something of Theet’s weight when he sat on my shoulder.

First time speaking what Theta was saying - So this was something I think we started doing around this time; if Theet said something funny or smart or useful, or just whatever really, when I was in a context with other people IRL, I’d say it aloud. This isn’t the same as Theet “talking with my mouth”; he would say it in my mind and then I’d be like “oh yeah good point” and effectively be just sharing it with the group.

2011

Intention/Thought/Emotion Speak - So this is the beginning of the period where we are not on TDF for a really long time. And it’s also the period where we start getting looser with strict projection and with dialogue speak. We had had a long run at this point of projecting most of the time, and of talking with back and forth dialogue, and at this point we, I suppose, were more able to speak in shorthand, just through emotion or intention, or using a couple of words rather than full sentences.

Image Speak - The above also included a lot of communicating via images alongside bits of conversation. All of this isn’t to say we entirely stopped communicating in dialogue, but a lot of the time it was quicker and easier just to throw images and thoughts back and forth.

Solid Weight + Intermittent Weight + Prologued Weight + Full Weight - This kind of developed naturally with time and practice over this period, although I also think getting to the full weight stage owed something to not projecting Theet as much; so when I did project him I was more focused on it and all the sensations of it.

Vague Sense of Touch + Solid Sense of Touch - Same situation as weight, this developed, particularly with his arctic fox form, over the course of this year, with me focusing on it when I was projecting him.

Typed: Hogwarts Houses - This was the year we got into Pottermore, and from that spent some time working out our houses. We would both be Gryffindor primaries and Ravenclaw secondaries, although I think I would be sorted into Gryffindor, and him into Ravenclaw.

Waking Up With Your Daemon Present - It was probably around this period where Theet was already present the moment I woke up (as opposed to me having to get up and have it take a bit of time for me to wake up and then him to start chatting).

First Daemon Directed Interactions - This is probably the time period that we started doing this, or at least that it became the norm. Theet is better geared towards certain types of social interaction than me - particularly introductions or when we need to be brief - so he kind of took the lead on directing in certain situations. He’s also really good at knowing what’s going on around us in any situation, so he also hardcore started utilising those skills.

2012 - 2015

Vague Shape + Intermittent Projection - This is still in the “not being on TDF at all” phase, and while Theet’s voice remained a solid and constant thing, we were pretty lazy with projection. Often I’ve just know where he was and such, but not really see him as a solid shape, and a lot of the time we did not project really and he just remained a voice in my head.

Dreaming - Honestly, this could have been sooner, I’m really not sure; but I’d say it was at least during this period that I first regularly started projecting and talking to Theet in my dreams. He popped up as corporeal a couple of times too, but mostly it was just the same as in real life.

First co-fronting - So I don’t know exactly when this started, and it certainly was not intentional. I think it was in large part because of his presence as a voice in my head but not a projected form, that there were times when we acted together in my body. We would slip in and out of it, and it was mostly just needs based; an extension, really, of the daemon directed interaction stuff I discussed above.

2016 - 2017

Daemon Out Loud - Again, this may well have happened sooner, I’m really not sure, but at a guess it was first during this time period that Theet would first “say” things to me, that I would say aloud. This has never happened with anything more than a few words.

I’m Happy But Still Working On It - I put this here because it was only really towards the end of 2017 that we started actually thinking about what we were doing again. From 2012 to 2016 we didn’t give it really any thought; we just did what we did and what felt right, and then towards the end of 2017 we started thinking about things like “oh, we should project more”, which was one of the several factors which led us back to TDF.

2018

Projecting forms other than our “defaults” - So we had very rarely used forms other than the arctic fox and the white ferret during Theet’s whole existence. But when we started looking again at settling, we knew we needed to get out of that comfort zone if we wanted to project as the forms we eventually settled as - so we started playing around with getting used to projecting as other forms. There were a couple of weeks where it felt awkward and uncomfortable before we got used to it, but now we really enjoy having a bunch of different forms we are easily able to project.

Human Form - Inspired by people discussing human forms on discord - that not being something we had given any real thought to before - we finally took the time to work out what Theet would look like as a human, and now, somewhat to our surprise, we actually really enjoy projecting him in human form (and it means he can dance!).

Type: MBTI + Enneagram + Classpect - Again, inspired by discord discussions, and with the help of a lot of folks on there, we worked out Theet’s types (alongside working out my own). He was pretty resistant to typing at first, but he’s warmed to it and working out both our types has proved pretty damn useful for both of us.

I’m Happy Here - Having got back to projecting more regularly, and understanding the realities of exactly what it is we are doing re: co-fronting (cause when we first did it I didn’t even know that term!), I’d say we are in a pretty great place right now.

Shamanic elements in “His Dark Materials” by Philip Pullman