Inducing Shifts
As described in this post, shifts are various states of feeling like your kintype. They’re usually involuntary, but shifts can be induced purposefully for a variety of reasons. If you can’t think of any reasons, sensory memory is a good place to start. You know how you can smell something or hear a song and be transported to a certain time in your life? This sort of memory isn’t visual, but more of an emotion associated with a sensation. Inducing phantom or sensory shifts is a good way to attempt recall of sensory memories.
Something that should be noted about any sort of memory recall, induced by shifts or not, is that false memories exist. Maybe your kintype had a perfect memory, but if you don’t, things are bound to get lost in translation from the transition into your body. Be careful with memories and always assume they could be inaccurate.
Back to shifts, you could attempt to mentally recreate any sensations you’ve felt from any sort of shift. If you’re having trouble with phantom shifts, practice focusing your attention on a physical body part before you try with an astral limb.
I’ve found recalling any visual kin memories you have to be helpful in inducing mental shifts. Truly feel yourself inside those memories, like you’re reliving it inside your mind. Continue this for as long as you need to (or want to!) and don’t get discouraged if nothing happens right away.
Dream shifts can’t really be done purposefully without knowledge of lucid dreaming. The best advice I can give for lucid dreaming is start by writing down your dreams, then if you notice that you’re dreaming (which can be easy or hard depending on a variety of factors) find a way to tell your dream-self you’re dreaming. One of the most common ways is to look down at your fingers and move them. This skill takes practice and you won’t start dream shifting right away. There are books on the subject of lucid dreaming if you’re interested in more than just dream shifts.
If you want to try and induce a cameo shift, know you’re not going to magically pick up another kintype by doing so. If you’re prone to thinking any shifts indicate a new kintype, I’d advise not doing this and instead exploring your current kintypes and seeing if they’re all relevant to you. Cameo shifts can be induced with any shift, or many shifts, but with sensations different from any of your kintypes.
