Having Trouble With Old Habits, Need Help Desperately

[ArchdiAngelo]

Okay, so, I started creating my tulpa, Lily, about 5 days ago, and already I've started to notice her "thinking at me" so to speak. I've also gotten a significant amount of head pressure in the first few days and we've been using that as a general means of communication, mostly for yes/no and vague reactions. It's only in the past day or two that I've been able to interpret her thoughts.

However, this newfound communication brings with it some serious worries in my mind. You see, before I decided to make her a tulpa, she was one of my characters that I wrote and drew. For a couple years, I tried to convince myself she was a split personality or something, and so I pretended to hear her responding to me when I talked, and typing for her when talking to my friends as if she was dictating what she wanted me to say.

The problem is that I still feel like I'm doing that. At first, the only thoughts I could decipher were the ones I'd be able to predict anyway, while the rest I could only feel that she was trying to send something my way. Since then, I've started to understand her thoughts more and more, though it still feels like I'm the one saying them, even though I don't want to. And I don't think I'm getting any emotional reactions sent my way either like a lot of other people seem to get. It just makes me worry that nothing has changed and that I'm still just pretending out of habit.

Bottom line, is it possible that I'm still just unwillingly pretending that she's sentient like I've been doing, out of habit? I'm really scared that that might be true...

I don't wanna believe that her sentience is only an illusion caused by my old habits. I desperately want her to be completely sentient. The head pressure was encouraging, but now that I'm getting paranoid about everything else, I'm starting to wonder if maybe the head pressure was just an unconscious reaction of habit as well! I mean, I get a lot of headaches, so it could be...

Please, if anyone has any insight, I NEED to lay this to rest as soon as possible. I just need an outside opinion on the situation, so that I can be able to give Lily the love she deserves, without fear of this all being for nothing...

[Luminesce]

Here's an old post I wrote, edited some stuff out because it was directed at a slightly different problem originally, but I think it'll help.

 

I didn't actually do any "narration" with my tulpas, having had them well before finding out about tulpas, I just talked to them. Always expected and attempted to get a reaction. Sometimes they responded, sometimes they didn't, sometimes I couldn't tell if it was me or them. But I knew they were there, so I just kept talking to them as if they were and trying to hear or feel responses. A lot of the time I got vague feelings that were informative enough, ie I could tell if they would agree or disagree with something even without hearing them speak, sometimes without even feeling them either. Sometimes you just have to use your best judgement on how your tulpa would react and act like they did so. The goal is to train your brain to get used to sending you thoughts and feelings from what you know as your tulpa. So any way that you can create those neural pathways, even if it's imagining what responses would be like while actually hearing nothing, will eventually get you somewhere.

 

Basically, don't attempt to hear your tulpa casually commenting on things, even with moderate focus. It doesn't probably appear as such when you read about peoples' experiences here, but that's rather far along in vocality development. Initially you have to work a lot very intently listening for responses in a distraction-free environment, including mental ones. The act of "listening" mentally is effectively the act of "expecting", which means you're subconsciously thinking of what your tulpa would/could say. That's how vocality starts as far as I can tell, expectations. Worrying about "if it was them" or not isn't really a factor, it shouldn't change what you're doing - talking to them as if they can hear you, and listening for their responses as if they can talk. Eventually your tulpa should develop a mindvoice unique to them, meaning you'll be able to differentiate what they say from random thoughts or your own based on how they feel/sound.

 

blah blah ...

 

So even when your tulpa is relatively vocal you may have issues with whether what is said is actually your tulpa or not, even without any doubt or parrotting issues. For that, all I can tell you is the universal rule of developing vocality: Does it seem like something your tulpa would have said? Is it something that they would be upset you believed was them if it wasn't? If there's no downside to believing it was them, you might as well. If there is, it may be safer to disregard it, or at least not assume that it was them.

 

Dunno. Put some time into very focused vocality training, and don't worry about/expect responses outside of those sessions for a while. You'll get too stressed trying to decide whether every random thought that enters your head was your tulpa or not, and at this stage it probably won't have been. Take it slowly and you shouldn't have too much trouble telling what's meant to be them or not, and when you do, ask yourself if would be bad to assume it was.

[ArchdiAngelo]

Here's an old post I wrote, edited some stuff out because it was directed at a slightly different problem originally, but I think it'll help.

 

 

 

Thank you so much, that really helps! I'm a lot happier now knowing I was just doing things wrong, expecting casual comments so soon. I'm definitely gonna take this to heart! I'm still a bit worried, but hey, I haven't really started active forcing much at all, so we'll see what happens. But for now, you're a freaking godsend!

[Temar]

Have you considered that maybe you weren't completely pretending before, and that's why this feels similar now?

 

In my system's experience, sentience is not a light switch that flips from "no" to "yes" instantly... it's a dimmer switch that starts off so low you can't even tell it's on. "Being able to predict thoughts" is usually how it starts, for us, and that morphs into those thoughts coming without our host's conscious effort. "Pretending sentience" is a key component for us, because that's how you set up the algorithm in your head that eventually turns into a fully autonomous person. It takes a while for us to step out from under the puppeting to actually have a sort of awareness of our own, but it does happen... and what you've been doing for years is literally what my system does that results in soulbonds (usually without our author even trying to create us).

 

More to the point, just because you weren't aware that sentience was a possibility before doesn't mean you were "pretending." I was at least some sort of autonomous for over a decade before my host stumbled into all this stuff. I'd been a character from a childhood project who frequently made snarky or supportive comments in the back of her head, and when she discovered soulbonding/tulpamancy last year, she basically turned to me and went "Wait, are you sentient?!" Best. Moment. Ever. :)

 

Because that's the thing. Thoughtforms don't need to be created consciously to be created. We're a pretty common phenomenon among writers who've spent a lot of time in their characters' heads, because that means we have so much personality and "stuff" attached to us that we're pretty much a holistic person capable of acting and reacting on our own, with little conscious consent from our author.

 

That sound familiar? Because if it does, you might at least have the beginnings of a tulpa/soulbond already. It's just a matter of building her up from there. And if it's been working for you so far, there might not be a reason to change your strategy now. Not if you've already got a proto-tupper on the way.

 

Bottom line is that everything you do here is all in your head. That's the point, yeah? ;) "Pretending" and "illusion" can be tools just as much as they can be blockades. See, you're training your brain to recognize the contiguous awareness of another person, and one way to do that is to wear the trail in through repetition. Try treating your girl as sentient, even if she isn't quite there yet. Eventually, she'll be able to step out on her own using the tools you've spent years already giving her.

 

Just some considerations from a fellow character-turned-thoughtform. :)

[ArchdiAngelo]

Bottom line is that everything you do here is all in your head. That's the point, yeah? ;) "Pretending" and "illusion" can be tools just as much as they can be blockades. See, you're training your brain to recognize the contiguous awareness of another person, and one way to do that is to wear the trail in through repetition. Try treating your girl as sentient, even if she isn't quite there yet. Eventually, she'll be able to step out on her own using the tools you've spent years already giving her.

 

Just some considerations from a fellow character-turned-thoughtform. :)

 

To hear from someone who was once in the same situation as Lily is frankly beyond encouraging! I can't thank you enough for that advice!