Yeah, sometimes I stand in front of a mirror when I transform, trying to learn how to control the changes of my body in a more pleasant and steady way. Because you know, if you just let the changes take a cours by themselves, you can end up as a wildly twisted creature while changing, some body-parts changing faster than others, giving you a huge paw on the end of a human arm.

Which is why i train like this. Standing there, saying nothing, listening to nothing but my own breath and trying to concentrate my thoughts. Maybe some of you know how to move your ears. Those of you that do then maybe can get a feeling how it is to ease those changes out and keep them under control.

The most important thing is, that you have to concentrate on how your body feels as a dragon. You have to imagine how your tougher skin hugs your muscles, the way your longer tongue fills your your extended muzzle, the weight of your horns weighing on your head, all of these things are aspects you have to consider.

I most ofen start wtih those changes that are the easiest to achieve, which are nose and ears. Both have no bones in them, only muscles and cartilage, thus they are the ones fastest to react to the change, and in my case, as I can wiggle my ears back and forth a bit, I already have a feeling of how they feel as a dragon.

When I feel my nose pull up big by bit, with my nostrils growing, at this point of the change I also ease out my ears, feeling them elongate, my muscles for their movement becoming more pronounced and flexible, while my upper lip pull up a bit as well, allready merging a bit with my flattening nose.

Most of the time I also see at this point how my eyes start to change colour from a soft brown to blue, specks of the colour of the sky appearing in them. Maybe it sounds silly, but seeing my eyes change often brings out a smile on my growing face, which then also shows how my canines start changing, going from blunt teeth to pointier fangs, new enamel packing up layer after layer to reform my teeth, more following suit swiftly.

Soon I would notice how my nose pushes out more, flattening on its ridge as it keeps pushing and pushing, my entire head feeling like it is pushed and pulled at the same time. Sometimes I get the sensation of a pulsating headache, without the actual pain, mixed in with that weird sensation you experience during growing pains. I am sure you all experienced those, so you can get a feeling of what this feels. When my head changes, nothing is as intense as growing in my muzzle, I can tell you this.

It is just... hard to describe, if you suddenly have such a protrusion growing from your face, pushing out more and more, that you can now actually see your nose (though I also noticed that after a while the same brain-feature sets in that humans have as well, that your brain 'deletes' the sight of your own nose, simply so that you have a full view in front of you).

Yeah, at times I just place my both changing hands on my muzzle as it pushes out, feeling skin growing over newly forming bones and muscles ... just thinking about it makes my toes (and tail at times) curl in joy. At this point of the change I also have to take off my glasses, because first, as a dragon I don't need those anymore, and second, because my ears started to migrate more to the top of my head, it is quite hard to keep them in place too.

Yeah, you heard that right, the magic of my pendant did not fix my eyesight-problem when human. Though I do admit at times simply for habit reason, I put on a pair of glasses (which I adjusted myself so they can be worn by a dragon) without optical glasses, just to have the sensation of a pair of glasses on my ... I nearly said nose, but here it would be muzzle.

A thing one has to watch out for when changing is that you have to let your horns and muzzle grow in at the same speed. Those horns are not merely for show, or maybe a protection of my neck (when feral. As an anthro they do not really offer any kind of protection for my neck) , no. They also act as a counterweight for my muzzle. I can tell you, such a muzzle still has some weight on it. I mean, I can bite probably as strong or stronger than a crocodile, so there are some serious amounts of muscles, bones and teeth there. If you would not have that counterweight, here the horns, you would seriously strain your neck muscles so that your muzzle would not hang down all the time.

I also played at times with my hair. My default form as a dragon is hairless during spring and summer, but after a while I noticed that I started to grow some silvery-blue hair on my head, both in feral and anthro form. I mean, I can still will out that hair if I want to, but if I 'just' turn normaly into my dragon form, I am hairless in spring and summer, and with hair (or maybe is it fur?) in autumn and winter. But as I said, I played around with it sometimes, changing colours, or length, but most of the time I just let it be in its natural state. It just feels ... better. So this is why probably most of the times you saw me with either this silvery-blue hair, or hairless. Though I once tried out a punk-style with straight up hair and poison-green colour (might share some pics of that hairstyle some day).

Where was I? Oh yeah, counterweight, muzzle, there I have been. What you also might have to know that unlike antlers, which are dead bone material, a dragon's horn is not dead. It is very much alive, so I never shed them like deer would do. I assume they will even keep growing just longer and longer the older I will get. Here though it seems I have neglected to let my hrons grow fast enough, so I briefly had to close my eyes, while flexing my neck muscles hard enough to keep my muzzle horizontal, trying to mentally push out these two horns.

The sensations my horns give me is more difficult to describe. The best way I can put it, is if you touch your fingernail with another fingernail. You don't really feel touch, more like you feel the pressure added to that body part, as well as the heat from the finger there. That is how it feels when you would touch my horns.

Just a hint in advance, never let your horns grow out too fast, because that can cause possible damage to your skull bones. After all, the base of your horns are directly aligned with your skull, and if you push them out too fast, it can cause some micro-cracks to apear in your bones there. It is not life-threatening, but it does not feel too pleasant when they heal in the following days. (Luckily dragons seem to heal a lot faster than humans do. )

So yeah, there I am, a finished dragon. Very much me, yet...not. You see, when your body changes, that also means your mind changes. With this I don't mean memories or anything. But it is a fact that your mind is influenced of the signals your body gives you. Now if your body is twice as heavy as before, has a 2 meter long tail, wings larger than bedsheets, skin strong enough to withstand small caliber bullets, claws on each fingertip and the weight of your muzzle and horns pulling on your head constantly, this all together changes the way you think, the way you behave and act.

Don't get me wrong, even as a dragon I am still shy and timid at times, yet I did notice some changes there as well. The Japanese say that each person wears three masks, one for the public, one for family and one for themselves. Here ... it can be seen as similar. Though I don't wear any masks. Rather, my entire body becomes a mask of my mind, and it affects my mind and soul directly. My brain is wired mildly differently when being a dragon, different hormonal cocktails flow through my system and influence my behavior, instincts deeply rooted in this shifted brain of mine often let me act in ways I never would as a human.

So yes. As a dragon I am me, but also not me, I am a changed me. Could you say as a dragon my mind is human, with dragon additions? Or is my human mind pushed into a draconic template, causing every single fibre of my mind to change and fit into that template and when I change back, my mind is pushed into a human template again? I cannot give you an answer there, there is still so much I need to know, explore and learn about myself.

But I will keep you updated. After all, there is still so much to explore for me about my body and my abilities.

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Just a deeper insight into the changes I undergo at times, visualized by the amazing   matatabi88