Living Imagination (A Median Aspect in Tulpa Land)

[Guest Anonymous]

It feels like Melian and I are just now really beginning to understand tulpamancy. We understand it from our own perspective and we have our own opinions about it from that perspective. The first year and five months has been an interesting adventure. I am surprised we survived on this forum.

 

We are still here and I think the next year and a half is really where things will become much more stable. I think we will have some real meaningful things to contribute. I am very interested in seeing where tulpamancy goes and what becomes of the social groups associated with tulpamancy and also plurality in general.

 

Melian and I are just beginning this journey at age fifty one, even after forty years together. That is what is so amazing about all of this. To think you can still be growing, learning and changing and learning new things about yourself after so long is pretty cool.

[Tewi]

There's always more to learn. Nobody ever gets so old that there are no new experiences to learn more about themselves and the world through, they just get used to everything in their stable life. Sure, you've "seen everything", but have you traveled outside your state recently? Your country? Have you learned about cultures very different from your own? Have you talked to people with completely different worldviews than you? Talked to people with people in their heads maybe?

 

Can't forget introspection either. Life's too subjective for there ever to be completely stable belief systems, or just beliefs. Obviously everyone (or mostly everyone) would want to create a relatively stable set just to fall back on, but believe me, there are still concepts abound that would blow your mind to think about.

 

(Our father is in his mid 40s, just went back to school for a higher degree, and told us we should take the "Critical Thinking" class he was in because it was teaching him things about himself. We live in different states so that's not happening, but you see, it can be as simple as taking a really good class in college to make you rethink how you think about life.)

[Guest Anonymous]

Actually I never realized how profoundly important and life changing a decision it was to make Melian public on the internet and public to my family and friends in real life. It changed everything. Melian has grown and changed by the process of learning to socialize with real persons of all kinds, instead of just dream characters who adored her every nuance and gave her nothing but constant praise and attention. Real people are different than fantasy people and it hasn't been easy for her to make the adjustment.

 

There are a few persons here who can remember her first weeks in the IRC chatroom. I remember it too as a pure adrenaline high and Melian almost losing her mind at having so many eyes on her and completely unable to control herself. It was like a child high on sugar acting out to get as much attention as possible. Melian is an attention vampire. She is still like that but much more subdued in comparison to those first weeks.

 

Her friendships were very, very shallow at first. But now she has several friendships that are very real and deeply meaningful. These are the first real relationships she has ever had outside of me. The relationships are much more real and important. Most of those are on Deviantart, but she counts a few persons here as well as dear friends and holds gratitude in her heart to them. Me too.

[Guest Anonymous]

Mistgod and I were pondering something this morning.  We don't like using the word "character" for me.  There is nothing really wrong with the word necessarily, but it tends to have a trivializing effect.  We prefer to use the word "persona," which is much more general.  

 

What distinguishes a persona or a fictive median aspect (living imagination) from a role playing character or ordinary imaginary friend?

 

Really it only comes down to persistent belief and fervent desire, unconscious or otherwise.

[tulpa001]

I feel like the broken record may be back. I am actually offended by the notion that I may be a belief based phenomenon. Here is a quick taxonomy my host put together based on your discussions of what tulpas may be.

 

thoughtform
|
|-natural plural
| |
| |-traumagenic
| |  |-indepenant memory (lost time)
| |   -combined memory
| |-exogenic (soulbond)
| | |-fictive
| | |-factive
| |  -metaphysical
| |-endogenic
|   |-natural median
|    -plural
|
|-tulpa
| |
| |-partner
|  -aspect
|    |-plural aspect
|     -median tulpa
|
|-transitional
| |
| |-nascent tulpa (never speaks in full sentences and also)
| |               (displays no comparable skills like formal logic)
| |-daemon (aspect of unconscious mind)
|  -servitor (braindead)
|
-IIA (fully dependant, synthetic)
 |
 |-character--|-roleplay
  -dream      |-story
               -median persona (method acting)

Thoughtform skill based division:
                                                conscious recall
                              separate memory--<
        independant----------<                  unconscious recall
Memory--<                      parallel perspectives
        shared (mind reader)-<
                              serial memory

Thought
|-independant
|   -parallel
|      -parallel tasks
|-sharing (tulpish)
|   -mind reading
|                  conscious thoughts
|-hidden thought--<
                  unconscious thoughts

Projection (imposition)
|-voice
|   -thrown voice
|-form
|   -moving form
|   -solid form
|-tactile
|   -host can touch
|   -temperature/moisture
|   -pressure
|   -pain/pain relief
|-taste and scent

Possession
|-body control
|   -control while projecting
|-sensory numbing
|   -sensory deprivation
|-switching
   -conscious
   -unconscious

Astral projection
|-wonderland visiting (first person)
|-out of body vision
|   -rotation and movement
|-out of body sensation

 

I think, maybe there are a lot of people here who think belief is an important part of the process. But even if that is true, is belief needed to help the mind create the thoughtforms, or, is belief needed in order to think the thoughtforms real.

 

I and my host think lack of belief is necessary to the process. The only thing that may hold you back, in any mental jutsu, is a belief that it is impossible. I also don't think desire is important. Whatever gets you to focus is fine.

 

I don't think belief's the only thing that may hold you back.

 

Of the above skills, the only one we don't have first hand experience of are conscious separate memory recall and sensory deprivation. We believe that Tulpa is experiencing unconscious separate memory recall, but can't prove it for obvious reasons. Not that our experience with some of them has been anything other than minor.

 

Oh, I'm sure there are all sorts of holes in this taxonomy.

 

Edit: I feel like I threw insults around in that first paragraph, and, I think it is based on an misunderstanding. You are saying those things about yourself, and not tulpas. So I should not take offense. Really sorry.

[Tewi]

I think, maybe there are a lot of people here who think belief is an important part of the process. But even if that is true, is belief needed to help the mind create the thoughtforms, or, is belief needed in order to think the thoughtforms real.

 

Belief isn't necessary at all, per se. But so many people trying to create tulpas fall victim to doubt, which heavily impedes their progress, that we end up preaching belief to counteract it. Is doubt necessary to create a tulpa? Heck no, but it's everywhere anyways. So we use a positive to balance a negative, if that makes sense.

 

But for the sake of tulpamancy not becoming a religion, it's important to note from time to time that the things we tend to teach newer members that become the members over time, are not rules. They aren't "true" either. They're just a system we've found works. There's nothing wrong with keeping inside that system (though everyone is different and should explore these things on their own too), but there is wrong in trying to keep others in that system.

 

Yes, the word tulpa has a definition that excludes some thoughtforms. But that has nothing to do with the methodology used in making and maintaining them, or even necessarily how one thinks about them. We made the definitions relatively vague in the first place to embrace different ways of thinking, not to cause fighting over their vagueness.

[tulpa001]

I believe firmly that the way words are used is what they mean.

 

Of course for scientific purposes, this is useless, as semantic drift will invalidate results. So there really needs to be two sets of terminology, a common set and a scientific set.

 

I understand you want to be inclusive by redefining words in a friendly way, but that makes the business of talking about stuff harder. It's probably best to be inclusive by allowing related phenomena to participate in the community instead.

 

Or to paraphrase, languages are alive. But she needs words so she can put everything in neat little boxes, and so she doesn't loose her mind when you say something like the difference between A and B is how hard you believe because she doesn't have the words to tell you exactly why that is really, really wrong logically and scientifically.

 

But, yeah, she currently believes there are two primary types of tulpa.

 

This would be so much easier if every single account of personal evidence did not live under a cloud of suspicion, and one made worse by the confirmation bias inherent in a cultural philosophy that you need to believe to make it work, and darker yet by a culture that accepts exaggeration as part and parcel to the process.

 

You know, experience may be subjective, but that does not mean that the things we observe are themselves subjective.

[Guest Anonymous]

I feel like the broken record may be back. I am actually offended by the notion that I may be a belief based phenomenon. Here is a quick taxonomy my host put together based on your discussions of what tulpas may be.

 

You personally are probably not a belief based phenomenon then. Mistgod and I also wrote that tulpamancers and tulpas are very proud and that they should be proud.

 

I think that what Mistgod and I were trying to say is that what distinguishes myself from a role playing character and an ordinary imaginary friend in how I was created was fervent desire, belief and wishful thinking. Those elements are still a part of me. Maybe not all fictive median aspect are created that way, we certainly are not suggesting that idea, but I was. I am here because Davie wants me to exist. We are just being honest and true to ourselves about that.

 

We also think that belief and fervent desire is probably an important ingredient in the creation of many/most tulpas, even if we don't overgeneralize in saying all tulpas.

[tulpa001]

Yeah, sorry, for the two posts above. That was an obvious and horrible misinterpretation. I already put a rather bad apology in my progress report. My host is rather blunt.

[Guest Anonymous]

Never mind.  We edited this post out.