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A thread about how I discovered my inner friends


EclecticWheel

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Hi, everyone!

 

I introduced myself to the forum once and wrote only a bit about what I call my "people."  I am not sure whether to call them tulpae (or is it tulpas)?  It is possible they have their origin in trauma, and I have a dissociative disorder.  However, I've been employing some methods on this site to connect better to my friends with some success already.  I've also been reading widely about the multiple community which includes not only dissociatives, but a range of other people, too.

 

I'm writing this thread mainly because I feel safer sharing my experiences here on this forum and hope to find some companionship.  It may be that my experiences will help shed light on your own experiences with tulpas.  In my case I am sure that reading about the multiple community and the tulpa community is helping me.  I don't feel so alone in my experiences.

 

I will hereafter refer to my Friend or Friends when speaking about my people.  There is a fifth, but he only comes around occasionally.  I did not seek to intentionally create my Friends.  They emerged spontaneously in a bad time in my life.  I had written in my journal, "I will be my own friend," and they began emerging over the next several days one by one and were able to communicate with me.  So I didn't need to go through the stages of creating personalities or anything.  Only one of my Friends is human.  I can write more about the forms they take if that is of interest.  I am still taking a look around the forums to find out what kind of discussions will be stimulating here.

 

But in this post I'll talk about what has made my experiences of my Friends more vivid as I think that could be helpful to others and also very interesting since I had not known about the tulpa community during most of the time I've been acquainted with my headmates.

 

I am a very religious and spiritual person, but I'm not pushy about it, nor am I dogmatic.  I practice my spirituality within the context of the Episcopal (Anglican) tradition, specifically the Anglo-Catholic tradition, so I am accustomed to praying to saints and angels.  I also happen to interpret Christianity in non-traditional and esoteric ways and inform my interpretations with non-Christian beliefs.  I overlap with neo-pagan spirituality in significant ways and create my own rather esoteric rituals as well.

 

So when my Friends emerged it wouldn't be long before I began to relate to them within that context.  Now I am very much of the persuasion that headmates whether they are in my case alters or tulpas or traumatic or not in origin are a psychological phenomenon.  However, I'm not sure that God is not also a psychological phenomenon!  As I said, I am not traditional in how I interpret my religion.

 

I had a dramatic spiritual encounter one night in the woods after being led there by my Friend Shadow.  That was the first time I experienced switching.  I didn't go into a Wonderland or lose memory of the experience.  Rather, I had the experience of going inside myself where he normally is, and he took over the driver seat so to speak.  He spoke through me and controlled my body, and I was the inner one.  He did this to save me from danger, and I consider him a protector.

 

That entire experience -- not just the switching -- was so disorienting and confusing afterward that I didn't know how to deal with it.  Out of instinct I created a ritual to reenact the experience.  As an Episcopalian I am used to the comfort of rituals and familiar with the concept of reenacting a historic event ritually.  By transforming my experience into a ritual I was able to have a sense of control over something which overwhelmed me in its intensity and lack of predictability.  And of course in that ritual I invoke my four main Friends.  I make an offering to them and share in it with them.  The ritual is modeled after the mass I am familiar with.

 

Over the years I've found that this ritual increases my ability to communicate with my Friends.  One night only a few minutes after performing the ritual (which only takes about twelve minutes) one of my least active and least communicative Friends appeared to me in a dramatic vision and telepathically communicated with me in a profound way.  Of course I knew he was real in some sense, but until that moment I had no idea just how real and alive he really was!  It totally blew me away.  I would like to come back later to share that vision if I determine that it might be of interest to the general forum.

 

When I've shared some of my experiences with more open minded people I often refer to my Friends as my "good angels."  Again, I am inclined to think this is a psychological phenomenon, but I still work with them in a religious context because I tend to have a psychological framework for my religious practices anyway.  I tend to think of an "angel" as a messenger, and they have certainly had messages for me over the years.

 

Recently I've been lurking on the forum and reading about forcing techniques and similar topics.  While I did not have to develop the forms or personalities of my Friends since they emerged spontaneously I do think my religious practices have been a form of forcing and has made them more vivid, and I wouldn't be surprised if my experiences have unconsciously further shaped and developed their personalities.

 

Today I've been focusing on one Friend in particular who I've always felt was in charge of the system somehow or at least the most insightful.  I call her the Wise One.  She is usually female, but she has come to me in a male energy and also come to me in dreams as a male priest.  Since I had heard of reading to a tulpa to help create sentience I decided to ask her to join me as I recited the Daily Office.  These are sets of prayers, psalms, and scripture readings that are a part of Anglican tradition and prayer books.  I simply visualized her and thought of her while I prayed it aloud, and after I was done I noticed her talking to me a little throughout the day.  I felt like this was appropriate since she has always had the feel of a very spiritual type, like a medicine woman.  I will keep up this practice.

 

I am not sure that my Wise One and my people in general are not sentient, really, and in my practices I treat them as sentient.  They have all appeared to me in dramatic and powerful ways on their own without my expectation of it, so I do have some evidence on my side, and I would love to share more experiences if that is appropriate.  But I definitely think this community has much wisdom to offer on how I can more frequently communicate with my Friends which I think might be helpful for my psychological functioning: I need more cooperation in my system on a daily and conscious basis.

 

I suppose what I'm trying to get across here besides sharing deeply meaningful experiences is that in my experience I've found that very simple practices seem to have brought about very vivid experiences and communications with my Friends.  In my case those practices have been of a spiritual nature, and other spiritual people who experience tulpas may find some of those practices helpful to strengthen their own experiences.

 

Even for more secular people I think daily rituals adapted and personalized to one's own needs and the needs of one's tulpas could be very helpful.  I am limited in space right now, but in the past I've tended to create shrines for various saints and also for my Friends, a focus point for their presence.  Every time I see it I'm reminded of that saint or Friend, and I go to those shrines to make offerings and talk to the Friend as well.  I don't think it would be too difficult to adapt a similar practice in a less religious context.  Say, a corner with some art work significant to the tulpa, a special place to sit down and talk to hir or to force.

 

I would love to hear perspectives on what I've shared or your own experiences.  If you were interested enough to read this rather lengthy post I really appreciate your time in letting me share these experiences with you as they are very meaningful to me.

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Hello, Eclecticwheel... Looks like I will be the first to chime in. :) You have a very easy, conversational writing style that easy to follow. You speak well. I am going remark on a couple points that I found of interest, and I am responding as a human being, not an expert, or a forum mod, just two blokes having a nice conversation sort of thing, and so if I get something wrong, or don't completely communicate my intent well, blame it on the number of beers we consumed while having this hypothetical conversation. Actually, it's Romulan ale... I like the blue stuff...

 

"I am not sure whether to call them tulpae (or is it tulpas)?" This comes up frequently. I think the preferred is tulpas, as we are not latinizing the concept, but from forum to forum, person to person, even in my own writing, I don't think you will find any consistency. I prefer tulpas, but have actually written tulpae...

 

"It is possible they have their origin in trauma, and I have a dissociative disorder." If you have a diagnosis of DID, it is very likely this is what you're experiencing. Technically, if you have a diagnosis of DID, then someone has already called it this. Past trauma can explain a lot. So, if we were going to be absolutely, technically and philosophically precise, tulpas and tulpamancy is not DID. Tulpas are the result of deliberate intention to create an alternate personality. Can the end result be similar... Sure, why not. Let me go out on a limb here... It seems pretty sturdy. No one really has a good grasp on personality, much less multiples. Seriously, I know of know, "All you will ever need to know about personality..." book, and what is available is mix of pseudo science and metrics. Myer Brigs can tell you some tendencies, but I absolutely detest the Myer Briggs, I hated taking it, and I refuse to use it. Anything I could want to know about person come through interacting with them. There are definitely genetic factors that influence personality, and its evolution over time... That said, DID clearly reveals it's not an absolute or there wouldn't be so many extremely divergent personalities within a host. I know of no studies that talk about how DID is experienced differently in different cultures, which would probably go a long way to helping us understand personality. There are some mental health disorders that are in western culture that isn't in other cultures. Find a copy of "Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche" by Ethan Watters. There was a time in Japan there were no eating disorders; they got that from us, along with Mcdonalds and coke a cola.... Lots of good examples in that book, like cultures who have not experienced PTSD. And, interestingly, it reveals how different cultures treat mental health problems. The US is the worst country, in terms of social outcomes, for people with schizophrenia. That sucks when you consider the fact we call ourselves the most medically enlightened.

 

I think another factor that might reveal DID to be different than tulpamancy, other than origin pathway, is degree of functionality. I am not going to say most, but if you will suffer 'many' people who have DID have a decline in daily ability to function, where as tulpamancy doesn't. (I imagine it would be hard to promote a practice that actually caused harm...) DID, in response to trauma, is incredibly functional at helping a person survive, but the resulting division tends to not be as useful in other life arenas, and hence the name 'disorder...' If it improved functioning for most, people wouldn't show up at mental health clinics. People go to clinics because they are suffering. That in no way says you have to experience a decline, or even suffer, or have unpleasant experiences. There are lots of folks, someone has done science and surveys on this somewhere, of people who have pleasant hallucinations who never go to mental health clinics and have happy lives. Hallucinations are a human thing, not necessarily a dysfunction thing. You sound like you have coped rather well, and you put your experiences into a context that improved functionality, or least gave you a context to contain most of it. If tulpamancy, or any of its practices, helps improve that further, YAY! Record your experiences. Someone, somewhere, is likely to want to know more. I, too, think tulpamancy is a useful enterprise, and that we are probably accessing stuff in our subconscious that general population is not encouraged to practice. We don't like teaching people to day dream or to even be bored. Society is actually doing an experiment on us right now with all the tech that give us instant gratification across multiple neural domains.

 

"So when my Friends emerged it wouldn't be long before I began to relate to them within that context." This is basically what I was trying to say above, but there you go... Everyone does this. We all relate our experiences to what we know. Very healthy, and quite reasonable. There is no reason that psychology and spiritual beliefs should necessarily be differentiated into different camps. Psychology's origin actually was more closely tied to spiritualism in its beginning, and it is only because people wanted to be 'real' scientist that they emphasized the distinctions so that the 'hard' science might consider them 'real' scientists. In my opinion, 'real' is really over rated...

 

I look forward to reading more from you.

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Welcome to the forum. I'd be glad to hear more from you. Detailed personal accounts usually go in Progress Reports and I think they tend to get more views and faster responses there.

 

Ultimately it matters more whether your Friends want to identify as tulpas than whether people here call them tulpas. No one in my system calls herself a tulpa.

 

"Tulpa" can reasonably be defined as an intentionally created alternate personality (if your definition of "personality" requires self-awareness and self-will), as SC mentioned, except that excludes huge numbers of self-identified "accidental tulpas". "Tulpamancer" may be a little clearer. For me, that means "one who practices the mental disciplines of tulpamancy", not "one who creates tulpas". A DID/OSDD system could potentially learn and benefit from this community's accounts of forcing, co-consciousness, visualization, immersion, possession, and so on, displacing traumagenic chaos with constructed order.

 

Vesper is an Anglican, though a very conservative/traditional one.

 

If you don't mind, which dissociative disorder?

 

-Ember

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

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Vesper is an Anglican, though a very conservative/traditional one.

 

If you don't mind, which dissociative disorder?

 

-Ember

 

That is interesting!  I tend toward conservative liturgy, but theologically I am much more esoteric as I had mentioned before.  I am also socially liberal with no objections to women priests, same-sex marriages, and other things that more conservative Anglicans object to.  There are all kinds of combinations and approaches in Anglicanism.

 

I am still in the process of being diagnosed, but based on discussions with my psychiatrist and therapist they are leaning toward a diagnosis of OSDD.  I have been in therapy and psychiatric treatment for a long time over my lifespan, but we are only now recognizing many of my experiences as dissociative.  I take psychiatric diagnoses with a big grain of salt, but I do think I have experienced various forms of dissociation and have since my childhood.  But all of this is very complicated, too.  Different people choose different paradigms through which to relate to their experiences.  Dissociation is probably a valid one in my case, though.  I have experienced dysfunction from my dissociation in general.  Not so much from my Friends, though, except in one instance, but it may have been possible to rectify that if I had talked to her about it.  I'm not sure, though.

 

I was at work and began dissociating in a general way -- feeling very dreamy.  After that a Friend began appearing to me in visions.  Before I knew it I was entering into another world where she was on a little island, and I was no longer aware of my physical body or the workplace.  For a few minutes I kept bouncing back and forth between this inner world and my body.  Unfortunately no one was taking over the body while I was out from what I could tell: I was in some sort of unresponsive trance state.  This is the only time I've ever experienced any dysfunction related to a Friend.

 

Unlike someone with DID, though I have experienced amnesia about specific events, I do not have amnesia when possessed by a Friend.  Only one Friend possesses me completely, and that has only happened fully twice.  (I usually call this switching, but I see that the term is used a little differently by some in the tulpa community.  When I was possessed I went inside myself, but not into a Wonderland.)

 

I have since discovered people in the multiple community who have a diagnosis of OSDD with experiences similar to mine -- an alter may front, but they have no or little dissociative amnesia between switches.

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Hello, Eclecticwheel... Looks like I will be the first to chime in. :) You have a very easy, conversational writing style that easy to follow. You speak well. I am going remark on a couple points that I found of interest, and I am responding as a human being, not an expert, or a forum mod, just two blokes having a nice conversation sort of thing, and so if I get something wrong, or don't completely communicate my intent well, blame it on the number of beers we consumed while having this hypothetical conversation. Actually, it's Romulan ale... I like the blue stuff...

 

"I am not sure whether to call them tulpae (or is it tulpas)?" This comes up frequently. I think the preferred is tulpas, as we are not latinizing the concept, but from forum to forum, person to person, even in my own writing, I don't think you will find any consistency.  I prefer tulpas, but have actually written tulpae...

 

"It is possible they have their origin in trauma, and I have a dissociative disorder." If you have a diagnosis of DID, it is very likely this is what you're experiencing. Technically, if you have a diagnosis of DID, then someone has already called it this. Past trauma can explain a lot. So, if we were going to be absolutely, technically and philosophically precise, tulpas and tulpamancy is not DID. Tulpas are the result of deliberate intention to create an alternate personality. Can the end result be similar... Sure, why not. Let me go out on a limb here... It seems pretty sturdy. No one really has a good grasp on personality, much less multiples. Seriously, I know of know, "All you will ever need to know about personality..." book, and what is available is mix of pseudo science and metrics. Myer Brigs can tell you some tendencies, but I absolutely detest the Myer Briggs, I hated taking it, and I refuse to use it. Anything I could want to know about person come through interacting with them. There are definitely genetic factors that influence personality, and its evolution over time... That said, DID clearly reveals it's not an absolute or there wouldn't be so many extremely divergent personalities within a host.  I know of no studies that talk about how DID is experienced differently in different cultures, which would probably go a long way to helping us understand personality. There are some mental health disorders that are in western culture that isn't in other cultures. Find a copy of "Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche" by Ethan Watters. There was a time in Japan there were no eating disorders; they got that from us, along with Mcdonalds and coke a cola.... Lots of good examples in that book, like cultures who have not experienced PTSD. And, interestingly, it reveals how different cultures treat mental health problems. The US is the worst country, in terms of social outcomes, for people with schizophrenia. That sucks when you consider the fact we call ourselves the most medically enlightened.

 

I think another factor that might reveal DID to be different than tulpamancy, other than origin pathway, is degree of functionality. I am not going to say most, but if you will suffer 'many' people who have DID have a decline in daily ability to function, where as tulpamancy doesn't. (I imagine it would be hard to promote a practice that actually caused harm...) DID, in response to trauma, is incredibly functional at helping a person survive, but the resulting division tends to not be as useful in other life arenas, and hence the name 'disorder...' If it improved functioning for most, people wouldn't show up at mental health clinics. People go to clinics because they are suffering. That in no way says you have to experience a decline, or even suffer, or have unpleasant experiences. There are lots of folks, someone has done science and surveys on this somewhere, of people who have pleasant hallucinations who never go to mental health clinics and have happy lives. Hallucinations are a human thing, not necessarily a dysfunction thing. You sound like you have coped rather well, and you put your experiences into a context that improved functionality, or least gave you a context to contain most of it. If tulpamancy, or any of its practices, helps improve that further, YAY! Record your experiences. Someone, somewhere, is likely to want to know more. I, too, think tulpamancy is a useful enterprise, and that we are probably accessing stuff in our subconscious that general population is not encouraged to practice. We don't like teaching people to day dream or to even be bored. Society is actually doing an experiment on us right now with all the tech that give us instant gratification across multiple neural domains.

 

"So when my Friends emerged it wouldn't be long before I began to relate to them within that context." This is basically what I was trying to say above, but there you go... Everyone does this. We all relate our experiences to what we know. Very healthy, and quite reasonable. There is no reason that psychology and spiritual beliefs should necessarily be differentiated into different camps. Psychology's origin actually was more closely tied to spiritualism in its beginning, and it is only because people wanted to be 'real' scientist that they emphasized the distinctions so that the 'hard' science might consider them 'real' scientists. In my opinion, 'real' is really over rated...

 

I look forward to reading more from you.

 

Solarchariot, I appreciate the compliment!  I replied to another post above that describes where I fall in terms of dysfunction related to dissociation if that's the paradigm I'm going to use.  I also gave a (very brief) explanation about how I feel about psychiatry.  I believe there are multiple valid paradigms through which to relate many of our experiences, and while psychiatry may be useful, it is not the only one.  I do have some personal issues, though, and I seek out what I need from the mental health professionals and leave what doesn't work for me.  Thankfully I have a psychiatrist who gives me much respect and autonomy.

 

I totally agree with you about not strictly separating psychology and religion.  I am only now becoming familiar with Jung, but it is amazing how much some of my Friends sound like his archetypes down to the names I call them!  I didn't even know about Jung during the process over which they emerged.  So there's another paradigm to explore for this phenomenon.  There is a paper somewhere online written by a Jungian about DID, too, so there may be some light to be shed by a Jungian approach as well.

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I am a huge Jung fan. I highly recommend the 'Red Book.' Probably see that in my posts. :)

 

 

Ember.Vesper's recommendation this fall under progress report feels right. (I tend to be a little more permissive in not just moving things without serious thought, so if it's good with you, I am going to shift it...)

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We love to hear about all the different ways systems have emerged, and we also love to hear visual descriptions and accounts of fun times in wonderland.

 

Welcome!

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Only one Friend possesses me completely, and that has only happened fully twice.  (I usually call this switching, but I see that the term is used a little differently by some in the tulpa community.  When I was possessed I went inside myself, but not into a Wonderland.)

 

Stupid old definition misleading new members. In possession, the host doesn't "go anywhere", the tulpa simply controls the body. In switching, the host "goes" - out of the "driver's seat" is one of the only neutral (vague) ways of defining it. Having a wonderland at all is not a prerequisite to switching, so it shouldn't be part of the definition. The host normally is, after switching out, wherever the tulpa was (or other tulpas are), which could be a wonderland, totally inactive, or just wherever the mental space tulpas normally take up for that system is.

 

Call it possession or switching based on whether or not you "leave" your position in the mind. If during the experience you're no more than your tulpas are, then you've switched. If you're more or less the same but your tulpa is controlling the body, then they're possessing. Not every system (especially those from outside this community) has it so cut and dry, but hopefully your experience fits better into one of our terms than the other.

Hi, I'm Tewi, one of Luminesce's tulpas. I often switch to take care of things for the others.

All I want is a simple, peaceful life. With my family.

Our Ask thread: https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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