Stand under the stained glass
And I will know it's you-

Hello- I go by Vessel, Ves, or Mainframe. I am a Sleep Token introject of Vessel/The Director.

I have been an alter in this system for many, many years and I have been many different personas and fictives over the years. I live in this system with a Sleep and ii fictive- though this Sleep is not like the one from my pseudomemories. We believe that I am currently the second oldest alter in this system, as I have memories of our sixth grade elementary school and I remember my first fictive memories when we were in late highschool. As a result, I'm very close and very protective of our oldest alter, Shin. (Who I refer to as "the kid" in meatspace.)

I consider myself protective and sensitive to a fault and I'm prone to obsessive behavior. I am known for being tempermental and reckless... but I am trying. There are things I've done and people I've been I am not proud of, but I am trying every day to be a little better then I used to be. I carry a lot of the emotional baggage of our system and a lot of our various disorder symptoms.

I'm really trying, here.

Introject? Fictive?

An introject is a type of alter that can form in people with a dissociative disorder like DID, PDID, or OSDD. We are based off of external sources, rather than our brains forming a new identity from wholecloth. A fictive is a subtype of introject that is based of a fictional character. In my own experiance and observations in the community, many introject heavy systems tend to be neurodivergent in ways that are prone to media hyperfixation and I personally believe the two are strongly correlated.

It should be noted that people with dissociative disorders *CANNOT* control which introjects they form or how many they form. Some systems are as small as two or three and some number in the hundreds.

Pseudomemories?

Psuedomemories are a phenomenon that many alters, particularly fictives, experience where we form false memories that can feel as real as our actual remembered experiences. This can particularly pronounced in fictives, as we have an external source which we can use as a jumping off point. I've had many sets of psudomemories over the years and I can generally remember actually forming them- which I've been told is extremely uncommon.

I am... considering sharing my psuedomemories one of these days as mine are currently a blend of headcanon and, more recently, bits of the Sleep Token graphic novel... However, that feels vulnerable in a way that I'm not sure if I feel comfortable with yet.

Isn't Sleep Token a band?

Yes. It is an music collective that our system discovered in February 2023 after they released the single "Vore". The band is known for being an anonymous concept band built around a mysterious cult that worships an ancient long forgotten god of the collective subconscious and dreams that they only refer to as Sleep. Very, very little was known about the band's lore beyond that until recently- the band is infamous for being laconic to the point that many of their press releases are only single words in length. This recently changed with the release of the recent Sleep Token graphic novel, which confirms a lot of previously implied cosmic horror themes and frames Sleep as an all consuming Eldritch Lovecraftian god.

The use of the cosmic horror lore contrasts a lot of the song's actual content, which focuses mostly on seemingly autobiographical songs about Vessel's turbulent love life and past. The songs themselves are known for being difficult to assign to a single genre, but they're typically considered progressive metal. There's also heavy dance, R&B, rap, and jazz inuflence in their songs as well. They're notable for Vessel's clean vocals and impressive vocal runs and the unexpected use of piano in many songs as well.

Do you...?

No- I don't literally believe I'm Vessel. However, my current identity is formed around the character that the fandom built for him in their collective fan writings, with a heavy dose of our own personal bias.

I've spent the last year and a half trying to become more than just a copy of someone else- but I can't escape my fictive roots, no matter how much I try. I consider myself semi canon-divergent, I am my own person with my own goals and interests... But I started Vessel shaped this time around and it seems to be permanent so far.