Experiences With Meditation

[Piano Soul]

[align=justify]Daily thread #23

 

What sort of experiences have you had with meditation in regards to tulpamancy? In what ways has meditation helped you to improve certain tulpa techniques/skills, if it has? Is meditation something you'd recommend to new tulpamancers and why? 

 

Of course meditation is something that can be beneficial in general to your mental health and such, but this is specifically how it can affect tulpamancy.

 

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[YukariTelepath]

I found... actually active forcing for tulpamancy helped my meditation ability more so than the other way around. Before tulpamancy, I'd meditate maybe 10 minutes on the rare occasion, but after active forcing daily for 40 minutes, I could easily meditate for 40+ minutes. Sometimes meditating seems to make it harder to communicate with Aya, other times it seems to help. At least one time, we had really clear communication after meditating.

 

I also do a sort of meditation forcing, it's not proper meditation, but I'll close my eyes and focus on Aya, think about them, maybe do some positive affirmations ("You're independent", "You're full of energy", "You can talk easily and clearly"), focus on their 'essence.' Doing this can bring out some trippy feelings. Hard to say what effect certain forcing techniques have had in the long run, but it seems like a productive thing to do.

[solarchariot]

I found meditation counterproductive to my Tulpamancy experience, contextually. I was trained in TM, transcendental meditation. 1996ish? The regularity waxes and wanes, but to date, I still remember the mantra given me. TM was important enough that when I committed to it, and I hear meditation, I think TM. I suspect most people connect the word meditation to some image of a Buddhist Monk in rags on a mountain top or of some hippie emptying their mind. Meditation isn't that, either. I imagine some folks hear the word meditation and get freaked "I can't do that" because they have never entertained quieting the mind, which is different than 'turning the mind off.' Meditation is not the latter, but rather is increasing the level of focus attention on a thing, the breath, what have you, and if we really want to go deep- we might as well break down what it means to pay attention...

 

Meditation is in truth much broader than my fall back definition of 'TM,' encompassing a whole range of options. Mindfulness is actually meditation. Walking is a meditation. Watching a candle is a meditation. Watching television is a meditation. Cooking, preparing food... Everything we do can be a meditation. Your daily voice is a meditation; you, we, are scaffolding something or tearing down something, and we might as well be engaged in a daily direct hypnosis because we're all doing it all the time. Meditation is being aware that we're doing it and changing the script. I spend time in a float tank. This is a meditation, but it is not TM. I don't use a mantra. So, Forcing, is a meditation, by definition, using this context. What needs to happen next is teaching folks to not give up if they find they can't attend for five minutes at a time... If one has never asked their brain to sit still and focus ever, one shouldn't expect to be able to do this for forty minutes if you never asked your brain to do this. If you never picked up a weight, you don't go and pick up three hundred pounds. Even if you're strong enough, you also need technique. Barbells is a different technique than lead safes.

 

I consider my morning ritual of coffee and writing to be a meditation. I don't think and or plan or deliberate what's to be written... I get up, I start coffee, I dress for work, I drink coffee, and I write. I write for an hour and half minimum. Sometimes I wake before the alarm. I do this daily. Loxy helps. She's actually writing sometimes, but I am not yet ready to say with certainty that she is taking over and driving the fingers. I know that my inner chatter/narrative goes away, just as it does with TM, and I am more likely to witness words than actually chose a word. The words arrive between 60 and 80 words per minute. There are times when I left late for work because i was not present. There were time when my son entered and scared the bejesus out of me because I didn't know he was present till he touched my arm. When I reread it, if I do, it is coherent, even with misspellings, and sometimes surprising- enough I will be amused. I say sometimes because the word describe the experience, but the experience was not in words, and sometimes the wording is funny, but still reasonably represents the experience. I will ask Loxy if she wrote it and she will mostly answer, "We wrote this." I consider my writing a form of meditation. I consider my writing an integral part of my tulpamancy experience, as it has provided a medium for us to explore our perspectives on shared experiences and realities.

 

I would recommend meditation, but specifically I would recommend each different type of meditation being used according to it's operating parameters and context. TM is TM. Tulpa meditations are tulpa meditations. If I recommend a tulpa related meditation, I would say pick something that uses an artistic expression- writing, journaling, art, music, communion with nature... Something that a person can do and allow an inner strength to come to the surface. Basically, Jungian 'active imagination' is allowing the subconscious avenues to express itself in conjunction with the operating consciousness. I am having a difficult time sorting my experiences with tulpamancy as being separate from the unconscious mind- and my deep work. Even if unconscious is unnecessary, for me it started there, and as it evolves it continues to impresses itself outward through conscious channels.

[Guest]

Amazing stuff, yeah, that hypnagogic 'trance' is truly something else.

[Redacted System]

Usually when we try to meditate I accidentally end up either asleep or the only one active, semi-conscious watching thoughts drift past and barely remembering them after getting up again. Other than that, there have been a few times where one or more of us have been able to feel really loved and comforted by each other. It hasn’t helped contribute to any long-term tulpamancy goals (since we do it so infrequently), but it’s helped keep me sane and it’s always a great thing to experience and share with someone else.

[TB]

Meditating on my tulpa has been one of my primary methods of forcing, and ability to do that can improve with ability to meditate in general. The better one can focus, the better one can force, I think, no matter what technique it is. Metta or loving kindness meditations with them are also very nice, I should do those more. Anything that helps improve mood I think is helpful to any endeavor, including tulpamancy. Meditation is also what got an accidental switch, though haven't been able to recreate it, but have taken a break from trying.

 

I also think the deepest levels of meditation may grant direct access to the most advance tulpamancy skills, but I haven't verified for myself yet, since I can't get close right now. That is one of my biggest goals, but I have a huge evil wall to break down first, and it looks like it might take a long time...

 

I'd recommend meditation, but to make sure to not just be doing it mindlessly or without knowing what one is doing. It is good to have a specific technique to employ and know what its purpose is and what it is supposed to result in.