IRLs are a common delusional occurrence among those with psychosis or other psychotic disorders.These IRLs usually form as a subconcious involuntary dissociative coping skill for any kind of stress the body may be put thought. Such as anxiety, depression, overwhelming emotions, trauma/past trauma, etc. The brain latches on to a character/person/object, and fully identifies itself as that thing completely.
IRLs may form from something that makes the individual happy, something they can relate to, a character/person that may help them come to terms with negative emotions or trauma, something they wish they were like, or something they are frequently exposed to.

If you're talking with someone who has let you know they are presenting as their IRL or they have shifted, it's best to do your best to treat them as they have specified during this time.If they've asked you to use a different name, pronouns and talk about different memories with them, do your best to respect that. If they've asked you NOT to do this, then do not. If you don't respect the boundaries of a shifted individual, it may have serious consequences, such as jolts or panic attacks.Some psychotic individuals may be sensitive to reality checking, in which it is especially necessary to avoid medical terms such as "delusional", "psychotic", or call their identity a "fake identity" or anything similar.Keep in mind, when an IRL identity is present, especially in a hard-shift, the individual is fully emmersed in the identity and has much trouble telling what is in their physical reality and what is not.*check the Terms page for definitions on the bolded terms

From: The Subcon Snatcher"I have a metaphor, it's like I live everyday in a world of black and white repetitiveness that's both overstimulating and understimulating at the same time. I expose myself to media that I enjoy, such as AHIT and it's AUs, in order to balance the stimulation and find happiness through losing myself in the fantastical worlds. When I get too lost there is when IRLs form.
And for me, the IRLs are like the gas to the shifting flame. When the little shift triggers, like a familiar sight, face, color, sound, feeling or piece of media hit, the flame ignites and fills the world with such blinding color that I can't see the real one anymore
But anxiety, trauma and stress can also ignite the gas similarly, because of the sharp, burning feelings, and can produce the same kinds of blinding memories, personalities, feelings and identities that other shift triggers can. Essentially, shifting for me is like a wave of blindness, or a violent replacement of what I know to be real. Jolting is when that comforting, colorful blindness gets suddenly ripped away, to leave me with a reality I wasn't prepared to know again. It tends to shatter me, and leave me feeling fake, and hopeless, and sometimes angry."

From: Blood Sacrifice
"Imagine your body to be that of the universe, without the stars or the planets that give it its beauty. Empty, lifeless, full of the dull hum of the void. The universe is tired of feeling empty, so it goes out and looks for something to give it life and beauty. To give it purpose. And it finds the stars, lighting up the darkness with firey rays of fire and gas, eliminating every corner of darkness with no choice.
That's how our IRLs feel. Our body is the univ:erse and our IRLs are the stars. Without them, we feel numb, without purpose, empty. They give us life, color, and beauty.
Sometimes, during a hard-shift, we have a solar eclipse. Where the light of the star has overtaken our vision completely. Blinding us to any other planets or stars that are possibly there.
But sometimes jolts act as a sudden thunder storm. Ripping away the light of our star and drowning us in the rain of reality that we were not ready for.
The star is comfort, the world is difficult.
And doubles make us feel as though someone is trying to steal our star's light, claiming it for their own. It makes us panicked, stressed, makes us feel fake. We need our star, we rely on it.
Someone is threatening our star, we can't let that happen.
So we don't appreciate doubles for the most part."

From: Spiderweb
"doubles can make us extremely stressed and even break down, even triggers psychotic episodes if it gets to the point where they claim to have a super similar timeline / experience as us.
we also become like... judgemental of Their timeline in a way 😭 especially if its like. our Top irl.
like if someone describes how theyre a karl jacobs irl and then they have a different tl then us we mentally go "thats not how it happened tho and u know it...""

  • Shift - moving from one identity and/or reality to another, in all or some aspects (can be known as dissociating)

  • Hard-Shift - occurs when an individual falls so deeply into a specific shift that they completely lose sight of their physical reality, and fade fully into their IRLs source

  • Soft-Shift - Almost like a half shift, or simply a less intense shift; when an individual has some sort of remaining grasp on their physical reality, yet is at least partially identified with their source (in personality, memories, and/or identity)

  • Perma-Shift - When one is their IRL 100% of the time, there is no real shifting "in and out" of this identity, they just ARE this identity

  • Physical Self - an individuals base/birth identity and reality

  • Double-Shift - shifted as two distinguishable IRL identities at once; commonly involves mixed source memories and mild to severe disorientation

  • Poly-Shift - Like the above, but with more than two (or an unknown number) of individual IRLs

  • Blurred-Shift - When an individual isnt sure of their source, but knows they arent their physical self

  • Jolting/Reality Jolt - may occur when an individual is reality checked (see the What Is section) or upon recieving intense stimuli; it is when an individual gets thrown so suddenly and harshly back into their physical reality that it causes intense emotional and physical distress, outbursts, and in some cases, self-injury. Avoid jolting a psychotic individual by being mindful of their shifts.

  • Masking - When an individual experiencing a shift or a jolt intentionally hides or otherwise stifles the effects of the experience, often to protect themself from ridicule.

  • Source - The piece of media (or otherwise non-physical universe) from which an IRL forms from

  • Latching - The community term for when an IRL is picked up from its source, or when the individual starts to be more commonly shifted as a pre-existing one

  • Source Memories/Feelings - The experiences, emotions, relationships, and traumas of the source character. In the case of an IRL, the individual may feel as though these things were their own experiences, or feel the feelings and traumas so deeply that it affects their own mental state similarly to the source. Physical Memories would be the term for experiences of the physical self.

  • Shift Triggers - Something that triggers the individual to shift away from their own reality into an IRL; may be something directly from the source, or something that reminds them of source memories.

  • Source Triggers - Things that negatively trigger the individual when they're shifted as a particular IRL; commonly something that reminds them of negative source memories.

  • Sourcemate - Someone else with an IRL, Kin or Introject from the same source as an IRL (i.e., The Conductor from AHIT would be a sourcemate for an IRL of Snatcher)

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