So after this weekend — where a huge amount of difficult, gut-wrenching, and emotional events took place — it occurred to me that I often write here about the aspects of existing as we do that come into play when hearing or reading about these lives online(or otherwise), but not as much as I would have liked about what it’s actually like to live it. And since I’m doing my best to document the entire experience, in every facet I can think of, it seems like this is something I should probably cover: the phenomenon of “bi-location”.
This is a bit of a touchy subject for me, though; because it’s an aspect that is likely to be one of the most misunderstood. But as it provides context that might be necessary to understand the full import of some situations... I’m going to take that risk. As always, if there’s something that’s unclear — or you have something to say — you can leave it below in the comments. I’ll answer pretty much anything as long as it’s asked respectfully.
That being said: I’m going to try to write this a bit differently, this time: instead of prefacing it with a lot of “here is why X is not (this other thing)”, I’ll explain it as I go. Deep dive, into our physical existences here: so let’s go.
What is bi-location? According to the Internet(perhaps obviously), “The act of what is referred to as bilocation describes a person being physically in two locations simultaneously”. When Googling for that definition, I discovered that it’s considered a mystic or psychic ability in some circles; that’s not how we mean it, although that information is fascinating(and something you’d think I’d know more about, after thirty years). But the concept of “being in two places simultaneously” is key.
Put simply, bi-location is a form of existing/interaction wherein our people, having come from other places, speak, interact, and react as if they’re in a specific place in their own origin timeline, thus facilitating certain experiences that they need to grow, evolve, heal, or otherwise move on. I realize that may be a difficult concept to explain on paper, so let me use an example. (Although good examples without giving away our specific people are hard to come by.)
Let’s say X and Y were survivors of the zombie apocalypse. (Different people, different bodies.) So the people running the bodies go to a remote campsite with no one else around, and then, with a bit of focused effort, proceed to “see” the area around them as the post-apocalypse landscape they’re familiar with. For the duration of the bi-location, then, they’re, say, super-careful about the noise they make(so if they forget themselves and yell, it’s motivated by a pretty uncontrollable emotion). They wear their weapons even though (they) know that they’re not physically in actual danger from roaming zombies.
But most importantly, they can now interact in a much “purer” form than simply sitting in the kitchen and talking; the people they were when their memories of their own timeline ended are fresh, raw, and unhindered by the trappings of sharing a body with someone/s else. Their motivations are more visceral, and they can resolve previous drama in a way that flows naturally and with great intensity.
Say that person Z from the same origin story is responsible for the accidental death of Y’s father. In the PC/franchise/story/origin, this was never resolved, but the blind hatred was always a sort of unspoken, central part of Y’s makeup. As I’ve written about before, the thing about actually being these people instead of wish-fulfilling or playing or anything else is that we’re dynamic people, NOT static “characters”. So although that may be a “driving force” in Y’s “onscreen persona”, in this reality that unresolved hate is eating them up.
So what happens? Maybe there’s an argument between X and Y about it. And since they’re actual people, the argument is real; there are tears and screaming and maybe throwing things. Maybe X storms off and while Y normally wouldn’t chase him, since they’re outside “in an unsafe place”, she won’t let him potentially wander off into a swarm of hungry zombies. Having to chase him makes her mad again, and in their vitriol things are said that unlock a certain subject that they’d never dared to speak about before. After the initial shock wears off, they sit down and talk.
Now this subject is no longer taboo, and even though it may take a lot of emotional effort and a LOT of long conversations to come back from this place, they have now reached a point where they’ve discovered things about themselves they otherwise never would have realized. And this affects them, like it would affect any other real person, going forward: now, when they are fronting “normally”, when they’re out talking or playing cards or walking around, this memory, framed in their own timeline, has become part of who they are. And like anyone, the self-realizations they brought back make a huge difference in their lives.
Or, say — and this is just a bit closer to the events I have found myself enveloped in these past few weeks — that Z is sharing a body with someone else from this existence, too. (For example; Y’s body’s brother/sister/lover/spouse/etc.) And during that bi-location period wherein they’re all reacting to and seeing their own reality around them, it comes to pass that Z comes out of the woods, face-to-face with Y for the first time since That Thing happened. None of what follows is planned, and often results in unexpected situations: maybe Y loses her shit and charges at Z, physically knocking him down and screaming until X pulls her off. During the course of a bi-location, these physical things actually happen: this is a very important point.
Maybe she pulls out her gun — and although none of the weapons carried around in these circumstances are active, and the body people are obviously aware on some level that they’re not going to be killed on the spot, the reactions are real because it’s understood that pulling the trigger/throwing the weapon/whatever will actively result in someone’s death. These things happen with acute awareness of the reality we’re perceiving, so it’s never a joke or a game or a fucking RPG. I have people who still carry guilt years later from actions undertaken during bi-location.
Maybe, after that first mad scramble, Z finally gets a chance to gasp something out... and whether it’s because they’re tired, or wet and cold, or because of a previous conversation, or whatever reason — dynamic people — Y decides to listen. And that one conversation changes EVERYTHING.
Maybe Y is finally able to let go of her hate. Maybe she breaks down, sobbing hysterically, for a full ten minutes until they all decide that packing it in to go treat their scrapes and get a little rest is the best idea; either by continuing the bi-location in another location — a tent, or home — or by gradually “fading back” to this reality, in which they’ll later sit and talk for hours, or pace the floors in confused grief, or what have you.
But these things that were sparked by the ability to see two places at once, these projections that facilitate these circumstances, can be absolute game-changers for living everyday life with these people. It allows them to move past their previous dramas and for new things to occur, all a necessary part of existing here.
Before I get to the questions that I know will be a lot of people’s first reactions to this, I want to do something I’ve never done until now: include a bit of media for reference. I know that this may either hurt or help my “argument” for our objective reality, but I’ve decided that it doesn’t really matter: because it’s not an “argument” at all. We exist. We are. We feel and think and speak just like anyone else: whether you believe it or not. Your lack of belief in our existence does NOT cause us to cease to exist. Sorry.
When this film first came out and I saw it in theaters, I remember very specifically being wound up like a ten-day clock afterward. And it was 99% this scene, this interaction, that did it. Because whether they expected it or not, whether they were using mental illness as a punchline or really were making a statement, this is one of the single best summations I’ve ever seen: probably much better than this entire blog post. The film is Don Juan DeMarco, with Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp, and the dialogue goes like this:
B: (Dr. Jack Mickler): Why don’t we talk about who I am.
D (Don Juan): Yes, I know who you are.
B: Who am I?
D: You are Don Octavio de Flores, the uncle of Don Francisco de Silva.
B: And where are we here?
D: I haven’t seen a deed but I assume this villa is yours.
B: What would you say to someone who said to you that this is a psychiatric hospital, and you’re a patient here and I am your psychiatrist?
D: I would say that it is a rather limited and uncreative way of looking at the situation. Look, you want to know if I understand that this is a mental hospital. Yes, I understand that. But then how can I say that you are Don Octavio and I am a guest at your villa, correct?
B: Yeah...
D: By seeing beyond what is visible to the eye. Now there are those of course who don’t share my perceptions, it is true...
Here’s the full scene: https://youtu.be/zrl0c8kl4J0
I know what a lot of you(well, if this were a highly-viewed webpage, at least) are thinking: while you’re busy rolling your eyes, let me address those things.
- Have you been evaluated by a psychiatrist?
Yes. Several times, in fact. I wrote about this in my very first blog post, way back there. My wife and I both have. And I told them everything. In absence of any traits of “disorder”, they call what we believe a “spiritual belief” that is NOT any sort of mental illness. Hard to believe for some of you, no doubt.
- Are you delusional? You mean to tell me you’re actually seeing some other place, sort of overlaid over where you are? That’s delusional.
Technically, it’s not. We aren’t operating under the physical illusion that we’re actually in the remnants of civilization, or standing on a Star Destroyer, or any other weird location you can imagine. We know our bodies aren’t physically there. Think of it like really, really good VR, without the hardware. To the people fronting, it’s absolutely real.
But if, say, the house caught on fire, we’d have the awareness to run like hell. Or if someone “official”(like, a medical specialist) were to call in the middle of a bi-location episode(presuming we had the phone and it was on), we wouldn’t let the people fronting answer the phone with some strange responses. Sometimes there’s a moment or two of confusion, like having the bends coming up from deep water. But you have to understand that after decades of living with this phenomenon, we’ve sort of got “real life” living down.
- Do you tell other people you’re (insert person here) while you’re outside somewhere? Do you catch other people in the “crossfire”?
Of course not. That would be crazy. 😉
Seriously, though, of course not. We don’t involve other people in our lives without their consent. (If they’re friends who know us, they may involve themselves/choose to hear about it/interact with people, which is different than dragging in random strangers.)
We’ve been known to laugh at other people’s unwitting in-jokes sometimes, or if, say, we go to the store after hours of intense bi-location and the clerk says “Well, you guys look like you’ve had a day”. But no. We don’t do that. The closest we’ve generally come is either going out in our people’s clothes because they want to, or people calling out each other’s names in public, usually by accident. In that case, people usually think it’s a form of endearment and they smile. Which is cool.
- Do you do this all the time? Are you constantly living in some weird in-between state?
Of course not. Most of the time, people who front do so in much less dramatic circumstances: they play cards, they cook dinner, they play video games; they build things, they repair things. Depending on who it is. Usually, people will gravitate toward their strengths; the mechanics, for example, will front to fix a vehicle, or what have you. And through all this, people exist: they talk, they eat, they sleep, they learn who they are, and try to find a place and a purpose on this world. That is the hardest thing.
- So if people fight while you’re bi-locating, do you physically fight?
Yep. It’s made for some interesting stories.
Although, to be fair, I’m fairly sure that there’s a bit of a control exerted behind the scenes there: neither me nor my wife(nor anyone else) have ever put each other in severe physical danger on purpose. I’ve had a couple concussions, though, and the usual gamut of fairly minor injuries. Compared to my long years doing martial arts, it’s not much to complain about. Turning that off would be muting people’s legitimate responses to situations, and we don’t do that.
- Is it role playing?
No. Roleplaying isn’t real.
Plus, roleplaying is a person’s interpretation of how a “character” would act; it’s controlled by the player. This is letting actual people react how they will in a situation as close to their original timeline as we can.
- Is it fun? The bi-location?
No. Generally not. And again, this is where we differ from people who role-play, or people who think this is “wish-fulfillment” or any other stupid fucking thing like that, used to dismiss and discredit us. Because who wouldn’t want to be X Cool Character, right?
Only... not so much. I’ve had bi-locations where the fronting person cried so hard I was sick for a full day afterward. “I’ve” screamed and thrown things and stood outside in the rain and had accusations and insults hurled like weapons. “I’ve” felt the uncontrollable urge to rend and destroy, and had to choose between the utter, primal satisfaction that brings and not causing irreparable agony to someone else. I’ve gone days without sleep and days without eating much and woken up soaked in sweat.
“I’ve” looked people we hurt in the eyes and felt the ripping, tearing, crushing struggle to just say “I’m sorry”. Been smacked and been hugged. All of the emotions that someone just living a 9-to-5 would have trouble comprehending because most people don’t have murder, mayhem, or madness in their personal histories.
And healing — real, dynamic people — IS HARD. It hurts and it’s messy and gross and of course no one in charge of any origin “franchise” will ever let those things see the light of day. No one wants to buy a ticket or pay for a book that’s twenty minutes of sobbing and ten minutes of screaming followed by more weeping, and then two hours huddled up in bed while someone else talks to them. No one would understand the card game that’s more a battle to finally let go of a lifetime of resentment. A fight for dominance and for a place. And so on and so on and so forth.
Most people could never see the villa.
Ask your questions in the comments.
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