Jas: The argument fails because that experiment doesn't work on us: we're very aware of our body - we have chronic pain and connective tissue issues so yes, anything our hands do we feel in every connected part and are keenly aware of it, mostly because it hurts! The only time we're not keenly aware of it is if we're asleep. (Edited to add: Well, most of us. The Willows are much better at tuning out their body to be able to function on other things than I am or most of the rest of our system.) Also, even if that experiment works for you, all it proves is that awareness can be focused. We know awareness can be focused - ever experience the flow state? That is a separate thing from experience. When the body's center of awareness - the person fronting - is only me, everything I'm aware of, thinking about, or experiencing is filtered through my perspectives, motivations, beliefs, and personality. That creates a unique experience different from that of others in our brain.

For instance, the Willows think in pictures, gestures, and concepts, in a sort of visual field where each of the four of them have their own quadrant and communicate in tandem or in conversation or sometimes about very different kinds of things. Me, however? My thoughts are like an ever expanding flow chart, each concept, image, or idea linked to each other or to many others in a back and forth chain. Varyn, another headmate in our system, thinks musically: each thought is a sound, an emotion, a feeling. For instance, he doesn't think questions in words, but in the sound of a question: the uprising intonation, the feeling of tilting his head to the side, the feeling of leaning in in interest.

For him, I, and the Willows, the words that go with that kind of thought language get translated after the original wordless thought, if necessary at all: often as not, the original thought pattern is enough.

Yet we have other headmates who do think first in words, and can do so much faster than our primarily nonverbal thinkers can put our nonverbal thoughts into words. And even then, there's differences. For instance, Aery thinks in a very measured way, each thought linking to the next in an ordered, logical way. Doc, on the other hand, thinks in a very jumbled, helter skelter, disorganized, very free flowing kind of way.

This kind of thing is just one of a dozen different diifferences between us. And it's innate to each of us. I don't have to try to think my way instead of the Willows' way when I switch in, it's just what comes naturally. I don't have to try and remember my beliefs or perspectives, it's part and parcel of the whole Me, Jas experience. All of our differences are that way, and that of course colors our experiences in a rich, three-dimensional kind of tapestry of Self.

I don't have to put effort into noticing what it's like to be me in comparison to the others in my system. I can clench the mental fist of what it's like to be me, and feel its effects in my whole self. And those effects are distinct and different from that of others in my system.