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First Steps


Charlie

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Hello everyone!

 

I'm Charlie, as you may have seen, and I'm pretty new to most of this whole tulpamancy business. I've known ABOUT tulpas for a few years now, but only recently decided to begin the (I assume to be) tedious and effort heavy process of introducing one to my own head.

 

I feel obligated to mention that my primary purpose for creating a tulpa is out of loneliness. Not in a sexual way, I've read enough warnings against that. Just in a basic social way. I've always had trouble making friends. And I recently lost pretty much all of the relationships I had. I've been socially alone for a few weeks now and it's starting to drive me crazy. I feel like spending time with a tulpa will help me remember how to invest in real-world relationships, and overcome my fear of closeness with other individuals.

 

I was hoping to get some input on this. Is this a healthy reason to begin the practice of tulpamancy? Am I somehow setting myself up for some unintended consequences? I'm fairly unfamiliar with the whole process, and figured that maybe social desperation or intense feelings of loneliness might affect the process. If anyone could tell me what's what in this area it would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

Now, on to business. This is day one I guess. Well day one of active forcing. I've had this habit of talking to myself for a few months. Just sort of "narrating" in my head. I don't know if that counts as passive forcing. I'm inclined to think not, since the narration was just sort of rambling to myself rather than being intentionally directed at some other entity sharing my head space, but I don't know much.

 

I don't really have a plan for the personality of my tulpa. I'm too afraid I'll mess something up. I just feel the mind is such a complex and beautiful thing, and to spend too much effort forcing a mind to grow into some preconceived blueprint somehow makes it less organic and natural and beautiful. Plus it seems almost impossible to successfully consciously render every aspect of another mind. They're too complex. I've decided to surrender most of my influence over my tulpas personality and thought processes. I hope that this will cultivate a better/more authentic relationship, and reduce the risk of me falling into this whole "I made you so you have to appreciate me" mindset. I do hope that it will identify as a girl. Somehow I relate to girls better than guys, but that's just a cultural preference i guess. And I hope it/she will have a warm, happy personality. Though personality traits aren't SUPER important to me. I mean they are, but it feels selfish to force something/someone to be a certain way just based on personal preference. I feel it would be better for traits to grow naturally and then learn how to appreciate them afterwards.

 

Today I started practice on visualizing. I've tried creating wonderlands before (purely for the sake of having a place in my head to escape to, not for tulpamancy purposes) and the problems I've run into are trying to see too much before I've fully developed an area. I guess I'm a curious person. If I see myself in a meadow or a clearing, I always think "Ok but what's past the clearing? Whats over that ridge over there? Where's the nearest coast? Where does this river lead?" It always ends up with me trying to visualize massive amounts of land area without being able to see much detail in anything. Just a series of fleeting images that don't really mesh well together. Like a collage of photographs.

 

To avoid that problem I decided to keep the wonderland small (for now). As of the end of my first visualization session, it's just a single room. It sort of looks like a dance studio type room. Its just a big empty room covered wall to wall with wood flooring. There's a wood door on one wall with a window in it. Kind of like you see in school building or classrooms. Beyond the door is a hallway with green walls. I've decided not to even try to imagine what other rooms might be in the hall or where it might lead. I'm going to try not to even open the door until I can visualize the studio room perfectly. Opposide the wooden door is a brick wall with a tiny window near the top. The window is too small and too high to see out, so I don't have to worry about trying to see what's outside, but it lets in some natural light. The wall to the left as you face the window is just a giant mirror covering the entire wall, similar to what you might find in an actual dance studio or a rec center. Mirrors really help me with visualization. For some reason looking at the room through the mirror is clearer than just looking at the room. I figured a giant wall to wall mirror would come in handy with visualizing. The wall opposite the mirror, right of the window, is still pretty hazy and undefined, from what I've seen of it it looks like it's the same olive green as the halls outside the door. sometimes there isn't even a wall there, just a black void, which is pretty intimidating. Interestingly, the door itself is fairly clear, but the wall it's on is not. I keep feeling like it should be blue, with carpet next to it, even though consciously I wanted the whole room to have wood floors and green or brick walls. The ceiling is white with long fluorescent lights trimmed in these dark wood borders.

 

Sorry about the long description. Figured it might be worth reading for SOMEBODY out there.

 

Anyways, after spending a VERY brief time establishing the room (which I'll just call "the studio" from now on"). I started working on form. I decided on a placeholder form, just the stereotypical orb of light. At first I had expected the orb to be about softball sized, but it seems to revert to the approximate size of a basketball whenever I stop consciously trying to shrink it. The light is soft, and baby blue.

 

After establishing a very rough, very hazy image of the studio and the blue orb floating in the center of it, I tried to (probably prematurely) move on to more advanced stuff. Mostly just moving the orb around. I imagined invisible strings in my hands, and tried pulling it into different parts of the studio. First from the door to the window, then from the mirror to the blurry opposite wall. Then briefly up and down, from floor to ceiling.

 

By this time it had only been about an hour, but my mind was pretty much exhausted. I'm hoping I can build up some endurance for longer sessions. And patience to work on the more tedious things. Like simply sitting in a room for an hour just trying to make it clearer.

 

While my mental capacities had been exhausted, my social ones had not. I decided to go for a drive and do some narration. I drove downtown and just took in all the sights and sounds of the tall buildings and the people bustling everywhere. Talking to her (I guess I'll refer to "it" as "her" until it can better establish its own identity) about everything I saw and expressing how I felt about the city. While in the car we listened to some music also. Music usually has a pretty big influence on me. Makes it easier for me to make my emotions and thoughts more concrete.

 

While driving around a name popped into my head. Nim. I know that chances are it was just my own idea, considering this is only my first day, but it's definitely something I'll bookmark for later when I can communicate with her a little better. I do like it.

 

After driving around a bit I came home and started typing this up. Sorry if this is too long for some people! I feel like the first entry almost needs to be long though, just to establish what I'm doing I guess.

 

I suppose that's it then! Please let me know if you have any suggestions, comments, or concerns! I don't really know what I'm doing haha to input is always appreciated! Thank you again, and congratulations if you managed to read the entirety of this random poster's ramblings.

 

Bye for now!

Charlie

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Hello, Charlie. It definitely sounds like you've done some research ahead of time and that you're off to a great start.

 

I was hoping to get some input on this. Is this a healthy reason to begin the practice of tulpamancy? Am I somehow setting myself up for some unintended consequences? I'm fairly unfamiliar with the whole process, and figured that maybe social desperation or intense feelings of loneliness might affect the process. If anyone could tell me what's what in this area it would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

I think that as long as you're cognizant of this, there shouldn't be a problem. I could argue that this has been my experience...I was a military plus latch-key kid, and my family moved to another state pretty much every year. This was back in the 90s, so it was still very hard to maintain friendships. I might've created Jack as a way to alleviate loneliness. Your tulpa will be more than happy to be your companion.

 

I don't really have a plan for the personality of my tulpa. I'm too afraid I'll mess something up. I just feel the mind is such a complex and beautiful thing, and to spend too much effort forcing a mind to grow into some preconceived blueprint somehow makes it less organic and natural and beautiful. Plus it seems almost impossible to successfully consciously render every aspect of another mind. They're too complex. I've decided to surrender most of my influence over my tulpas personality and thought processes. I hope that this will cultivate a better/more authentic relationship, and reduce the risk of me falling into this whole "I made you so you have to appreciate me" mindset.

 

Again, this is what happened with us. I wasn't involved in Jack's personality development (at least not consciously). His traits just appeared naturally as I narrated to him...and they have apparently remained in-tact even while he was "away." Some people would benefit from following a step-by-step guide, but if you feel that a more organic method would be suitable, then I'd say go for it. You can always change tactics later. I'm sure others will disagree with me, but just letting it happen has turned the experience into one filled with discovery rather than just work.

 

Mirrors really help me with visualization. For some reason looking at the room through the mirror is clearer than just looking at the room.

 

Gotta love them. I have been using a mirror that exists in "real life", and for some reason, it has helped me with visualization.

 

After driving around a bit I came home and started typing this up. Sorry if this is too long for some people! I feel like the first entry almost needs to be long though, just to establish what I'm doing I guess.

 

I personally prefer reading detailed reports, but if you're concerned with length, a common practice with PRs is to bold the highlights/tasty bits.

 

Keep up the good work.

Progress report

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Day 2

 

Hi again! First of all I want to thank Nyx for taking time to reply to some of the stuff I wrote yesterday! It's good to know that I'm not ENTIRELY just typing into the void here. So yeah. Many thanks.

 

Now, I don't think today was as good as yesterday in terms of productivity. I did do quite a bit of narration however, and found that I was better at it than I expected. This could simply be "beginner's excitement", but I found it rather easy to maintain a good stream of thoughts flowing her way. I was at work most of the night. I'm an overnight stocker for King Soopers, so it's not like my job really demands much of my focus or attention. I just put stuff on shelves. I'd say a good 3 or 4 of the 8 hour shift were spent just thinking about her and sending little tidbits of information about what I was doing or experiencing. I know its only half, but I didn't expect much of anything in terms of being able to remind myself to talk to her.

 

For active forcing, I don't think I did as good as yesterday. I spent the same amount of time, about an hour, but I'd say as much as 20% of that time was spent drifting off into randomness because I couldn't for the life of me seem to stay focused. I found that for alot of the time I was thinking about how my experience would translate into words for this progress report. I was thinking about how to explain what I was experiencing, rather than simply experiencing it, which divided my focus quite a bit. Does anyone know if this is a common occurrence? Is there a way around this, or does it just require discipline and practice to overcome?

 

Most of the time was spent on visualization. I tried a variation of Shokk's Visualization Focus Guide. Instead of a canvas or a book I just used the mirror as a reflective drawing board of sorts. I would write a number on the wall, look at the number, then look "through" the number and into the mirror to see where the number was reflecting onto. Alot of times I would just see my face on the other side of the mirror, but a couple times I practiced moving my head a little so the number would reflect onto different parts of the studio. I only got up to thirty before my discipline wore too thin.

 

Next I did something similar. I imagined a traditional white-board on the opposite wall of the mirror. I continued the same exercise on the white-board, but in a different way. I wrote shapes instead of numbers. I would draw a large square, look at the square for a few seconds, turn around and look at the square through the mirror for a few seconds, erase the square, draw a new shape, so on and so forth. This only lasted a few more minutes.

 

After that I tried a more passive form of visualizing. I just sat down in the middle of the floor and did my best to take in my surroundings. Occasionally knocking on the wood floor to listen to the sound or slowly dragging my hands across to feel it. I don't know if this is true of everyone but touch seems to be the easiest sense for me to recreate in my head.

 

Next I started thinking about her. I began trying to visualize her with a body. The reason for this wasn't so much to give her form, but for me to better work on visualization. In the end all that came out of it was me realizing how indecisive I am. I have no idea how I want her to look, which is good I guess. I know that when the time comes I will be more willing to let her decide how she (or he) looks.

 

I spent the remainder of the time (which was only about 10 minutes at this point) on vocalization. This wasn't so much trying to hear her speak as it was thinking about how I would experience it if I were to hear her speak. The whole idea of having different mindvoices is something I don't fully understand yet. Like I understand the concept, but I can't yet imagine how that would feel or sound. At first I tried to imagine like talking vs whispering. This is the easiest way for me to understand it. I would imagine my voice as speaking normally, and hers as whispering. Next I imagined it as two voices coming from different parts of my head. I would imagine my thoughts coming from closer to the front of my head, and hers as coming from more of the middle.

 

Eventually though distraction and a lack of discipline this quickly devolved into just plain ol' narration. Then I decided I was done forcing for the day.

 

Today worried me some. Just a little, but still. My limit for forcing today was determined by my lack of discipline, rather than mental exhaustion. I don't have the best track record when it comes to staying committed to things. And there are parts of me that fear this won't be an exception. I keep telling myself that this will be different because I "need" her. For social purposes. This isn't something I'm doing for fun. It's something I'm doing to learn how to better interact with myself and with the people around me. That gives me a little hope, yet there are always doubts. I just really hope I can stay committed to this, and that I can learn how to push myself further.

 

Anyways, that's all for today. Have a good one!

 

Charlie

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Hi again! First of all I want to thank Nyx for taking time to reply to some of the stuff I wrote yesterday! It's good to know that I'm not ENTIRELY just typing into the void here. So yeah. Many thanks.

 

Glad to be of help.

 

I was thinking about how to explain what I was experiencing, rather than simply experiencing it, which divided my focus quite a bit. Does anyone know if this is a common occurrence? Is there a way around this, or does it just require discipline and practice to overcome?

 

Not sure if it is common, but I can understand why it could happen. I'd say that the urge to worry about the PR will fade away as tulpamancy becomes second nature. The acts of writing the PR AND tulpaforcing are both new to you, so it can be easy to overthink certain things.

 

At first I tried to imagine like talking vs whispering. This is the easiest way for me to understand it. I would imagine my voice as speaking normally, and hers as whispering. Next I imagined it as two voices coming from different parts of my head. I would imagine my thoughts coming from closer to the front of my head, and hers as coming from more of the middle.

 

This is actually a pretty good method. I've seen people "feed" their tulpas answers to yes/no questions, which sounds rather forced and unnatural IMO. It wouldn't leave room for the tulpa to respond on its own. It sounds like you're already training yourself for a two-way conversation, which is exactly what you want.

 

My limit for forcing today was determined by my lack of discipline, rather than mental exhaustion. I don't have the best track record when it comes to staying committed to things. And there are parts of me that fear this won't be an exception.

 

Do you practice meditation? Tulpamancy is sort of a waking/walking meditation. As with any skill, any form of meditation takes time and practice to develop. You included plenty of visual detail in this post, so it is no wonder that you're experiencing exhaustion. If you're worried about steady progress, consider breaking forcing sessions into smaller chunks and working your way up.

Progress report

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I dont have experience on this subject but i been reading your detailed post. They are pretty neat full of detail on what you are doing day by day. I would definitely read up to see your progress. Dont feel like you are alone on this there is nice people on this forums willing to help out and teach. Im doimg research on my own on this subject i wish you the best of luck with your experience.

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