Mental Shifts

So, I've covered phantom shifts and briefly tossed out a mention of a mental shift. I think I should expand on what it means for me, so there isn't any confusion.

By a basic definition, a mental shift is when your mentality and thought process shifts completely or in part into that of your theriotype. For me, I always have some bit of animal in my mentality, so m-shifts (quick way of saying "mental shift") generally aren't shocking. I can tell when I'm more animal than human, and m-shifts generally only surprise me if its a rage-shift (when you become so angry, you shift completely or pretty darn close into your theriotype's mentality). Certain things that tip me off to an m-shift are: jumpiness, constantly scenting the air, dialation of the pupils (which, for my point of view means sharper lights and detailing), twitchiness, loss of motor skills (talking and writing/typing become almost impossible in some cases), and I'll watch people more closely than I usually would. Now, as for my whole, "What I'm thinking" when it's happening, that's a whole other story.

My mental voice actually disappears in some cases. It stays only for brief thoughts, that mesh together into a swirling mass of images and words that are supposed to mean something. A "sentence" of my thoughts during an m-shift would sound like, "whoareyou" or "whereami" or "whatsthatsmell". Usually, it is accompanied by images, sounds, random pictures of things I've seen to help my brain understand what is coming at me. For instance, once, I shifted at school (okay, not once. A thousand times it's happened, but this is an example). During this shift, a friend (who isn't a "packmate" so, they wouldn't get it if I just started sniffing them or rubbing my head against them wanting a pet) came up to me and started talking to me. I was about 75% animal, so I still had basic understanding of English. However, my mind processed her words like this: an image of a pile of yellow hay; an image of the sky; a friendly smile; an image of the cafeteria; an image of a rotten deer; an image from the memory of a kid vomitting violently on a bus coming home. What my friend has said in English: "Hey! What's up? Oh, don't get the meatloaf. Its sickening!" Lucky for me, I speak mental-image quite fluently (hint of sarcasm. Not fluently, I'm easily confused).

Now, I view people differently when I'm m-shifted. For the people in my "pack", I recognize them as family, moreso than my actual, biological family. To me, they (my "packmates") are people who will protect and defend me just as I would protect and defend them. My biological family is simply...just a group of people living and providing me a place to live and eat (granted, I love my bio-family dearly. But I don't think of them as a "pack". Make sense? I digress.). Friends of mine who aren't in my "pack" (my friend Barbara from Ag, for example), I treat with respect, but tend to sometimes not fully understand their relation to me if I'm m-shifted deep enough. In animal terms, Barbara would simply be a wolf who'd passed through my territory a couple times. I allow her on my turf, and I maybe even enjoy her company or her help in a hunt, but she isn't my "pack". If she came to my "pack" seeking shelter, I wouldn't turn her away. However, that level of mutual neutrality varies, depending on how good of a friend you are to me when I'm all human.

Bullies, morons, and disrespectful people are high on my no-tolerance list as a human. When I'm m-shifted, it's even harder to controll the urge to hit them. As a wolf, this urge turns into one of more...violence. Often times when I'm shifted and someone is lounging their feet all over my desk (someone who is a jerk to me or everyone else or the teacher), I tend to want to throw myself at them, pin them down, and bite either the back of their neck or their shoulder, near the collarbone. Then, snarl in their face to re-establish boundaries and to basically say, "Eff off." Animal world: acceptable way of dealing with people you don't like. Human world: lands you in long-term or maybe in an asylum (do they even still have those?). Or both. Or heavily medicated in some jail cell with bulky women named Betty or Crystal-Amber who get paid in singles...uh....wait, what?

Jokes aside, this is basically how I view the people in my life. Friends are simply allies who may or may not be "pack" material; my "pack" is my family, but my family is not my "pack"; and enemies are enemies, no matter the mentality.
What about you? Do you have people who are considered your "pack"? Do you ever want to just pin people down and establish dominance?