Voices in Your Head:
Your Multidimensional Crew
Reverend J. Variable x/ø
I’m sitting down to write. It’s 1:00 am. Everyone in the house is asleep, it’s blissfully quiet, and I’m alone…
“What are we working on?”
“Need a hand? I’ve got five extras.”
“Scooch over. I can’t see!”
“I WANNA HELP!”
“Last time you helped, we ended up writing subpar imitations of James Joyce all night.”
“No hitting! Demerits!”
Okay, so maybe I’m not exactly alone.
Some people have spirit guides; I have imaginary friends. I bet a lot of you do too, whether you realize it or not!
My invisible companions have been with me for as long as I can remember, and despite my parents’ hope that I’d grow out of it, they’re still around. They talk through me sometimes, or write, or draw, or help me build my websites. I think of it as an odd kind of channeling.
I used to feel weird or childish talking to imaginary friends long after I was supposed to have “grown up.” Over the years, though, I’ve come to understand their true nature and the important part they play in my life. They’ve shared my best experiences with me, and they’ve been there during my darkest hours when I had no one else. More than once, my Others convinced me to keep going when I was ready to give up. Sometimes they help me a lot, and sometimes they need me to help them, but most times when they show up we just hang out. You know, like friends do.
If you’re interested in cultivating a relationship with your own Others, I—er, we—have some tips and observations for you.
Where Do You Guys Come From, Anyway?
“Well, I used to live on your plane. The last thing I remember was a really good party, and then I woke up on this side.”
“I used to be Italian. But then I found out I’m, like, from another planet. Ain’t that cool?”
“We inhabit a dimension adjacent to your own, with a slight variation in the frequency modulation which—”
“DAIRY QUEEN! ”
It’s a little different for everyone, I suppose. In our case, they’re not me and I’m not them, but I’ve met some channelers who know that their Others are expressions of various fragments of their own personality. I’m sure everyone’s description of the process is unique to their own needs and understanding.
I like to think that my Others are just a vibrational shift away, in a universe somewhat like this one (that’s what they tell me anyway), and we just happen to be able to connect via the nodes and thin spots in the electromagnetic fields that form the planar membranes.
I like to think that my Others are just a vibrational shift away, in a universe somewhat like this one (that’s what they tell me anyway), and we just happen to be able to connect via the nodes and thin spots in the electromagnetic fields that form the planar membranes. Perhaps they’re super-sentient thoughtforms, or tulpas: purposefully created beings that take on a life of their own. I’m a firm believer in the multiple-universe idea, so in our case, it’s a little like making real contact with “fictional” characters. Everything you can imagine might be true in some universe, so why not?
Opening Doors Between Worlds
You may have already met your imaginary friends. Were they around when you were younger? What happened to them? Did they eventually just wander away, or did they stick around on the sidelines, watching you grow up? Either way, they’d probably appreciate a call.
Maybe you’re not on a first-name basis with yours yet, but you’ve been sensing some vague, unfamiliar sentience hanging around in your third eye’s peripheral vision. Why not invite them to introduce themselves?
Mine often show up in my dreams and trance-visions, but we’re also in touch throughout the day when I’m just going about my mundane business on this plane. It’s mostly a matter of knowing how to listen—the running commentary from my external peanut gallery feels different from my own thoughts.
One way to meet your Others and get to know them better is to involve them in your hobbies and creative pursuits. Authors and artists tell of a magical point in the creative process when their characters take on a life of their own and commandeer the project: this is the “zone” you’re looking for, when you realize that some of the thoughts and words flying through your mind aren’t actually coming from you. Write stories about your friends’ adventures, and include yourself in these tales! Draw pictures of them. Play music that you associate with them. Give them a turn too: let them write their own stories and create their own artwork (or music, or research projects, etc.) through you. Write messages to them and then hand over the pen and let them write back to you. Let them start writing to each other. Watch how the verbal style and even your handwriting change.
Don’t overthink it and don’t self-censor. It’s not about producing a masterpiece (though it’s nice when that happens). The idea is to find that place in your mind where your Others can get through. Plenty of surprises will come out of your pens and brushes and keyboards if you let someone else borrow your hands for a while.
You might also find that you don’t even need to use these tools as a medium for contact. After we’d been working together for a while through art and writing, my Others started popping right in and speaking through me. Have you ever watched an actor when their character starts improvising and throws the script right out the window? That’s what this feels like. Again, it’s not what I understand to be full-fledged channeling, since I’m always right there to step in (to make sure we don’t startle my mundane-world friends … or get arrested). This technique can be intimidating at first, but once you all hit that groove together, it feels great to hang out at this level. The general public will never suspect that someone else was speaking through your mouth, and you’re never going to see that shopkeeper or barista again anyway, so who cares if they think you’re a little “off”?
If you’re lucky, you might have a friend in this world who has Others too. This is when things really get interesting. (When I was in high school, my best friend and I would get on the phone every night and then just hand it off to our characters. Our baffled parents wondered what we could possibly have to talk about for hours at a time after spending all day together at school. They never knew that it wasn’t us talking.) There’s nothing like having a channeling partner and watching your Others get together, develop their own relationships, and create whole new storylines.
Caution!
There’s a difference between invisible friends and true spirit guides. My Others aren’t all founts of cosmic wisdom, though they come up with some pretty good ideas sometimes (and some pretty bad ones too). They’re not disembodied voices in my head telling me to do horrible things. They don’t take control of my body and cause trouble, and they don’t suppress my own consciousness, like the entities in the minds of those who suffer from a multiple personality disorder.
As with any magical act, channeling your imaginary friends comes with some risks and responsibilities. Think about it: you’re giving other people permission to borrow your body and brain. It’s fun, but it’s more than just a game. Once you open those doors in your mind, it can be hard to close them again. Channeling imaginary friends can be a rewarding, even healing, experience for all of you, but everyone involved has to acknowledge and honor the boundaries. Otherwise, things can slide quickly into dark, murky territory.
If you know that you’re prone to imbalance, psychologically speaking, you might want to seek the guidance of a professional therapist as you begin working with your Others. There are counselors out there who recognize the value of this kind of activity and even encourage it. They can provide objective advice without judgment and can help you maintain a healthy relationship with your invisible pals.
It’s easy to get entirely too wrapped up in your Others and their world. Over-immersion will cause trouble with your mundane life and relationships, so keep an eye on the lines between their personalities and yours.
It’s easy to get entirely too wrapped up in your Others and their world. Over-immersion will cause trouble with your mundane life and relationships, so keep an eye on the lines between their personalities and yours. While you may all have a lot in common, your problems are not their problems, and their problems are not yours. If they become intrusive and won’t leave you alone, or if you find yourself unable to function in the regular world without having them right next to you to step in at any moment, that’s a red flag: you’re getting in too deep. At this point, everyone needs to step back and review the rules. Declare a few days of solitude now and then to clear your collective minds and reground yourselves in your own lives.
Once in a while, too, you might encounter an Other who turns out to be a complete miserable pain. Just like the people you know in the real world, some of these Others are not always emotionally stable. What do you do about people like that when you meet them in this world? That’s right! Just because you can communicate with an entity doesn’t mean you have to. These aren’t omnipotent deities that you have to placate. They’re not all-knowing spiritual gurus who consistently dispense reliable wisdom. They might not all be humans, or even mortals, but they’re fallible beings. Other-dimensional jerks are still jerks. Don’t get so caught up in the excitement of contact that you let the control freaks walk all over you or your other Others. Real friends (imaginary or not) want to see you living well and happily and will treat you with respect.
As my long-time resident Nilly Rambus says, “If someone who moves into your brain-house turns out to be a GREAT BIG !?*@#!, you should sneak into their room and glue their underpants to the ceiling and put raw chickens in their pillowcases! And then They! Will! Leave!”
Disinfecting the imaginary linens and scraping the imaginary ceiling is a small price to pay for everyone’s imaginary peace of mind.
Cross-Dimensional Collaboration
Now that you’ve started to form your company, what do you do with them? If the excellent companionship, entertaining storylines, and bad jokes aren’t enough for you, try including them in your magical work. At one time, I had a small group of friends here in this world who were also familiar with their own imaginary pals. We used to cast circles with our Others, and after the ritual we’d spend many happy hours chatting with them via channeling or a ouija board. We’re still in touch, but since we all live in different cities now, we’ve moved our cross-planar social circle to the Internet. Social media is an excellent outlet for channeled characters when everyone just wants to chat, and it’s entirely possible to conduct magic rituals in cyberspace if you’re comfortable working in virtual reality.
Your Others are handy advisors for daily decision-making, too. Even though they’re not spirit guides, they can still help out a lot. Each character has unique talents, some of which can be harnessed by the channeler. (Nilly Rambus has a “psychic sniffer,” and I’ll sometimes ask him to come in and take a whiff of our location or a new person to see what his impressions are. He hasn’t been wrong yet.)
On the other hand, you’ll find that your Others often need your help, too. For example, one night I was working in my painting studio when one of my characters showed up, mumbling something about “art therapy.” Knowing that he was working his way through some tough personal issues in their world, I turned the canvas and my hands over to him. We ended up collaborating on a series of intense paintings over the next few weeks. He says that helped him a great deal (he’s since taken up painting with his own hands), and I got three new pieces that were markedly different from my usual style.
Invite your Others to help when you could use their perspective and skills in your own projects or problems. I don’t have full access to everything my Others know, but their presence does tend to enhance my own abilities. When the tech geek shows up as I’m building websites, I don’t instantly know how to write complicated code, but the search terms he suggests tend to bring up the information I need a lot more quickly. The psychiatrist and the shaman both notice things about people in this world that I don’t necessarily see right away, and they help steer me away from unnecessary drama and heartache. The demon is an excellent “business partner,” joining me for brainstorming sessions to generate new ideas for my freelance gigs and marketing campaigns. (“I still think you should add soul-bartering options to your website’s confounded payment system, my dear. The long-term interest will be worth a fortune in the afterlife.”) Okay, so not all of their ideas are going to fly in this world, but they’re still a valuable team of advisors.
Once you and your Others develop a rapport, you might notice an increase in odd coincidences as you go about your daily life. It’s not unusual for something that you were all just talking about to manifest somehow in this world: a line in a TV show, a song that fits perfectly, a newspaper headline that’s just too specific to be ignored, or other little synchronous blips that make you go “hmm.” I like to consider these events as little signs that the energy is flowing freely and the connections are strong between our worlds.
Just because your Others are imaginary doesn’t mean they aren’t real.
Reverend J. Variable x/ø either is abnormally sensitive to signals from other worlds or has an imagination on steroids, or maybe a bit of both. On this world, it lives in Portland, Oregon, with an excellent photographer-husband and an assortment of small pets that don’t make it sneeze. In the alternate universe, it resides with all its Others at a sprawling estate called Complex Manor, known to our neighbors as “That Great Looming Eyesore Down the Street Where All the Weirdos Live.” Variable can be found online hawking psychic readings (some of the Others like to help with these now and then, too) and metaphysical geegaws at www.reverend-variable.com.
Illustrator: Kathleen Edwards