#also pardon the shift in language halfway through the longer version

[reticent-fate]

Hope it's okay to RB this with additions (let us know if you'd prefer we delete this, op!). Also, we're gonna be talking about dissociative symptoms, since that's the framework that's easiest for us to use here; if you're reading this and your system is of a variety that doesn't experience dissociative symptoms, YMMV! (I'm on desktop but pretend there's a sunglasses emoji here)

TL;DR at the top: Yeah, headmates can have an effect on quite a lot of this stuff. Especially if your system is affected by dissociation, physical symptoms that affect sensory input are possible, but make sure to also rule out anything else in case it could be something worth concern. Logging it when you notice this stuff can help long-term in determining a possible pattern.

Long version is under the cut because we are verbose af (sorry lol).

CN: discussions of dissociative episodes, medical topics

So, firstly it's important to mention that, obviously, these things can also be caused by other things than dissociative symptoms. For example, in our case, we're autistic; when we're experiencing sensory overload episodes, the perception we have of a lot of sensory data is skewed and/or processed a little sideways. So something that normally may have a nice taste or scent may suddenly taste or smell like the worst thing in the world.

Chronic and acute conditions both can affect your sensory input/perception, and I mostly state this because, while some of this stuff is in the purview of our special interests, we're also not medical professionals lmao.

That out of the way, regarding headmates affecting bodily functions, we've found in our experience that some of our fronters will experience sensory input differently than others (with some intersection with the above example regarding our autism and how it affects our plurality). I can't find the post right now, but I do know that this is also something other systems have experienced; there's a specific post that talks about physical symptoms of dissociation, and that may be worth looking into if you think it can help with the situation. (Please be mindful of your needs when doing research, and if you find it is causing undue stress, be sure to take breaks <3 [/ci].)

Since you mention that this is a bit of a new thing, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to log when y'all notice sensory weirdness. If there's any kind of pattern or correlation, either regarding triggers/different headmates/etc., the more you keep track of these things the easier it'll be to tell. If you already have a health journal, it might be worth putting there; or if you track switches (like with an app such as Simply Plural or PluralKit), having a way to denote when this occurs may offer you some convenience later on when trying to assess the data.

We also would be remiss if not noting that in our experience, different headmates may experience sensory input in line more with how they function or appear in headspace. Again, this tends to line up with the dichotomy of our autism, specifically in regards to sensory seeking vs. sensory averse modes. Smell and food-related senses are easiest for us to notice these changes in, since we experience chronic migraines as well (and these are often triggers for our episodes); some headmates may not be triggered by scents that would trigger other headmates into an episode.

For a non-sensory related example, we have headmates with less keen spatial and temporal awareness that will oftentimes either struggle with dexterity-based tasks or ones that are unkind to our need for cognitive stimulation. A task that is easy to "zone out" during for one headmate suddenly becomes a task in which ten minutes feels like an eternity, because the headmate(s) that has switched in is more interested in doing something that requires thoughtful input.

Needless to say, this is all a very complex subject. We wish you the best of luck finding the words that best fit your experiences. At the very least, though, we can say with certainty: yes, headmates can affect perception.

I just wanna ask super quickly to help confirm it

How much can a headmate effect bodily functions? My examples are 1) Smelling things that aren't there and 2) Having dulled tastebuds/things tasting different than usual.

We are fully aware these are highly situational things to experience but its been noticeable enough and something we haven't experienced often and I wanted to help us rule out if those could even be possibilities.