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Stanford Tulpa Study: My experience and looking for more participants


Kronkleberry

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The event was 3 days long: 2 for travel, and 1 day for scans and interview.

 

 

I flew in in the evening, and caught a university paid Uber to the hotel. It was in the afternoon at this point. The flight from SLC to SFO isn’t a particularly long one, so I wasn’t horribly tired and didn’t feel like crashing for much. I relaxed a bit, and decided to meet up with another mancer in the area, and get a bite to eat. After a lovely talk with them, I headed back to the hotel to try and get some decent rest for the far more busy day tomorrow.

 

 

I had previously told the crew that I was more of an evening person, so we had the interview over lunch, and did the MRI scans later in the afternoon. Lunch was at Tanya Luhrmann’s home with Michael Lifshitz, on the Stanford campus. The interview was actually rather enjoyable, and gave us much time to talk about tulpas, the community, and Aly in particular. The interview was recorded by all 3 of us at the table, but the other two also will be transcribing it for better use later. It’s entirely possible to ask for a copy from them, and I might get a transcribed version later, but I have my own copy of the audio at least.

 

 

The interview was fairly free form. There were some formulaic questions, much like I received in the pre-study questionnaire. But there were also much more open ended questions, that didn’t have a set destination. More than once Tanya would get excited by a response, and ask more followup question that would end up following one tangent after another. The questions were fairly varied; from the more expected ones like how I found out about tulpas or why I made Aly, to more unexpected ones like trying to describe how specifically Aly helps me. The time flowed pretty quickly during the interview, as I attempted to explain my relationship with Aly and the experience of having her. I think I did okay, but there weren’t really any sort of wrong answers.

 

 

The MRI scan was fascinating. Due to scheduling restrictions, my session was broken into two portions. Each portion we focused on a separate task. I’m told that one of the two tasks was new, and I was the proverbial guinea pig, but I’m also told that it was a ton easier than the previous one. I wasn’t going to complain. I don’t want to go into too many details, to not poison the well so to speak, so that people can practice for the specifics of the experiments. The first one focused on mindvoice and possession/disassociation. It was probably the longer of the two, since it was a little more involved than the second. We found the test to be harder than expected, even though we knew a bunch of the specifics since we helped design the test. Trying to stay focused while the machine is loudly buzzing and clicking at you while you’re stuffed in a tiny tube, wasn’t exactly easy.

 

 

During this, I also had expressed interest in getting a nice scan to print off later. So after the experiment was done, they happily obliged and got a full resolution scan of my brain and emailed it to me. I plan on 3d printing it later, maybe at scale but I haven’t decided yet.

 

 

We then had to leave the lab for a while, since another group had scheduled it, so I was given like an hour tour of campus nearby and we grabbed some smoothies. At this point, I was pretty open to just chat with Michael, the neuroimaging researcher about the study and other plans, including doing an AMA after the data has finished being gathered and starting to be analyzed or published.

 

 

The second experiment was purely mindvoice related, and far less stressful because it was more open ended and less constrained in general. We rocked through this one really fast, taking a lot less time than expected. Which people were happy about since apparently this particular one had just been retooled. It was still loud and took getting used to, but it worked out pretty well.

At the end of it, who would have thought being in a tube for 3 hours would be tiring. I went back to the hotel, ordered some food and just crashed on the bed.

 

 

The last day, it was mostly just check out from the hotel and get ready to fly. Tanya had a couple more questions to ask, and I had nothing better to do between checking out of the hotel and my flight. I spoke with her a little bit more, then spent a little over an hour wandering the Stanford campus before I caught another Uber to the airport.

 

 

The experience was actually really pleasant. I was incredibly anxious and worried about it, probably for the same reason a lot of other people are. Worries about what will happen, what the process would be, Imposter Syndrome worries, and whatnot. But in the end, it actually was a really positive experience, and fell like it was good for both Aly and myself, since there were a bunch of things that got us a little bit closer together.

 

 

That all said, the study still has a bunch of funds left, and we’re looking for more people who’d be willing to spend 3 days in Stanford to go through it all as well. Here is the link for the new interest form, to help us screen who would be the best fit for the study.

 

 

Thanks all for reading!

Tulpa: Alyson

Form: Human Female, slender body, Auburn hair, Emerald green eyes.

 

Tulpa: Lillian

Form: Human Female, slender, blonde, dark blue eyes

 

 

 

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That's really awesome! I'm glad you had a good time!

 

For as much as we would love to get a brain scan, I don't know how well we could tolerate an MRI. If they don't give us something like Styrofoam ear plugs, we may ruin the results. Even so we don't have the cash to fly anywhere, especially not across the country.

I'm Ranger, GrayTheCat's cobud (tulpa), and I love hippos! I also like cake and chatting about stuff. I go by Rosalin or Ronan sometimes. You can call me Roz but please don't call me Ron.

My other headmates have their own account now.

 

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After checking flight costs and receiving reluctant budget authorization from my headmates, I filled out the form, which mentions travel and lodging are covered by the study. Given the question about location, I assume, ceteris paribus, that people who can be flown in more cheaply are preferred. But as worldwide tulpamancers go, the ones in the eastern US have very good proximity to Stanford.

 

-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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For as much as we would love to get a brain scan, I don't know how well we could tolerate an MRI. If they don't give us something like Styrofoam ear plugs, we may ruin the results. Even so we don't have the cash to fly anywhere, especially not across the country.

 

People who are chosen to come will have the costs of travel and lodging covered, so you don't need to worry about that. And the MRI is loud enough that earplugs and such are mandatory for safety reasons.


I also got a nice copy of my MRI that I plan on 3D printing later 

 

244ec788ed.png

Tulpa: Alyson

Form: Human Female, slender body, Auburn hair, Emerald green eyes.

 

Tulpa: Lillian

Form: Human Female, slender, blonde, dark blue eyes

 

 

 

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And so it begins. This'll be... interesting, suffice to say. Perhaps some "big breakthrough" is on the way. That'd be nice.

Hey there, the name's Bryan. In system Re:Body(In order of the rainbow): 

Sean, Esper, Blinky, Compact, Janey, Kyle, Gwen'd, Gwen, Emily, Rollin, Waynin, Trease, Layy, Justin, Chloe, Zachery, and Elliot. 

I've been here a while. Much longer than I thought I'd be. Our system was founded October 2nd, 2018. In early 2020, we decided that due to our systems exponential growth, we'd limit who would be active. Now, every month, we do a check to see who wishes to be in dormancy and who wishes to be active. Currently, for the month of April, 2023, we've got myself(Bryan), Janey(Co-host), Emily, Layy, Chloe, and Esper(sub-rep). After over 2 long years, we can finally switch :) 

 

Bryan is currently swapped in as host, Esper is sub-rep. 

 

"There used to be 7 wonders of the world, but now there's 8, as everyone wonders how much of a fool you are."

 

Ice909#0065 -- Always down for a chat 

 

https://discord.gg/89qN59SbRp Plural safe-space 

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Nice scan. :) I had a mri in 2004... I didn't know I was claustrophobic until they rolled me into that machine. They pulled me out, put a towel over my eyes, and pushed me back in. I completed the scan. I did not like the noise, either, Ranger. :) But really nice brain pics.

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Mri's are fun, I like small spaces though, I feel oddly comforted by it. I was laughing when they put me in one, it was so cool.

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