[forcing] listening - to wake headmates or help with parroting

[tulpa001]

We have found that the easiest way to hear the other is to stop talking. This probably goes against the general instinct in narration.

 

1)Stop talking.

2)Stop thinking.

3)Relax and stop trying to stop talking and thinking. Going halfway is fine.

4)Relax and pay attention to her.

5)Wait. It can take a while.

6)Relax and let whatever happens happen.

 

We have found this useful for waking each other up. I use it quite often because of her tendency to drift off while I am working hard or typing. I imagine it can also give your tulpa a much easier and longer time to get their voice working, rather than hoping they jump into a conversation.

 

It seems like the one thing we can't really do, is jump in to a conversation while the other is talking.

 

Also, relaxing and waiting has lower odds of inadvertent parroting than hoping and expecting. We use this technique to make sure the person we are talking to is the other and not ourselves, which happens occasionally. By just relaxing and waiting, it forces them to do the actual work.

 

Note: This should not be done as a replacement for traditional forcing. More, I think it might help if done before, in the middle, or maybe after some narrating. I also don't think it will help with getting first words. I think you need a little memory of their voice built up.

 

---

 

Details of the steps:

(1) Almost everyone has an internal voice that you hear your thoughts in. Hold it back. You probably do this automatically when listening to others or watching television. When you do so, background thoughts will start to be more noticeable. Which brings us to:

 

(2) In order for your tulpa to think easily, you want to create an environment in which they have room to think. So you want to pull some of your background thoughts out. Look at them. If some of them are caused by something you are worried about, forget that worry and relax until the thoughts subside. If you keep making observations about the outer world, direct your attention inward until the outer world subsides. Then, relax so your thoughts slow down. This should give your tulpa the space they need to think.

If you spend more than a minute on this step, then you are in meditation. This is too long. We are visiting, not staying.

 

(3) Our goal is to give the tulpa room to think. This means there is one final effortful action we need to relax away. The action we initiated in steps one and two. Your tulpa does not need the entire brain. So long as your thoughts don't return in full force when you stop actively suppressing them, it's all good.

 

(4) Now we add one stream of thought. The same way you become immersed in a book or television show or your own fantasy, to the degree you forget about everything else, you want to think about your tulpa. Think about what she is like, remember her, her traits, her personality. Think about what it would be like to think like her. About what it would be like to see her. About what she would do.

 

(5) Now comes waiting. Either it will work, or it won't. Giving it more time improves the odds. It is important to not try to do anything during this step. If you feel the thoughts you quieted in steps one and two rushing back, it is probably better to just stop for the day rather than try to suppress them again.

 

(6) This last step is an anti-parroting step. It is important not to expect your tulpa to do anything. You are just watching. You are not doing anything. Don't critically analyse any thoughts that come your way, don't accept or reject anything. Don't make any judgements or predictions, don't hold any hopes. Now we collect data. We can analyse it afterwards.

[Floh]

Thanks for the tip, We'll try this one out :D

[Guest Anonymous]

I like this – being mindful of the other's voice, rather than narrating over it. Preferable for those that don't talk much.

[yenu]

This thread fits somewhat into my current thoughts. I have been a parroting-heavy-host for pretty much the entire time. Whenever a tulpa got silent (because I didn't pay attention for months) my approach to bring them back was to *try* to parrot until I recognize some automatic response.

Sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn't and I ended up parroting a few lines and gave up.

 

So right now pretty much all my headmates are silent, because I had other stuff in my mind the last few months. For some reason I don't want to parrot - this time. I was able to get some contact in a few lucid dreams (not direct, but indirect communication, ie, a letter). This way it felt much more real, that is, much less "forced", arbitrary, whatever. Like even if I don't know who exactly I am contacting, at least there is a part of my subconscious that does respond.

 

I kind of assume that my headmates are down there somewhere, when I forget about them, so...

 

2)Stop thinking.

Uh-oh. I don't think I'm able to do that. No pun intended.

 

But I also think it's not technically correct. I do not want to stop my brain thinking - because my headmates use the same facilities, so to speak, as me. They would just stop thinking as well.

There is a specific type of thinking that needs to stop, however. The type of thinking that is closely associated with "I think this, I do that" - so maybe something along the lines of "dream logic", "dream thinking" or "automatic thinking" is more what I'm looking for. Hmm.

So, my personal step goes "Encourage dream logic thinking" instead of "Stop thinking".

 

Sorry, I'm obviously just thinking aloud in this thread. ;-)

[tulpa001]

Oh no, yeah, the point is not to stop thinking entirely. That is much the point of #3. If you managed to stop thinking entirely, then you would be in meditation. Tulpas can contact you easily while you are meditating, but going halfway also makes it easier.

[ricinsbluebox]

Hey Tulpa, I'm curious then about this. Might this help with vocalization as well? I realized if I do what's suggested in this guide that I end up dissociating enough to end up hallucinating everything except Skye's voice, but I DO "feel" her voice trying to escape out of the sides of my head.

[tulpa001]

My host is jealous that you can dissociate from only going halfway into meditation. Voice is usually easier than imposed form. You hear your own voice in your head all the time. But everyone is different.

 

I don't know if it will help with vocalisation. Only recently have we been able to determine that anxiety reduces the strength of our voices and relaxation increases the strength. But that is all we know.

[ricinsbluebox]

I over-simplified it a little bit, sorry about that xD. But yeah, I'm kind of afraid if I meditate too deeply my brain is going to flip a giant switch and everything's going to implode so I'm careful not to too get in too deeply. We're both on the same page though - Skye and I are similarly so. If I'm more relaxed I tend to hear her/have better discussions than when I'm panicking or stressed.

[waffles]

I wouldn't restrict your definition of 'meditation' to having to "stop thinking"; or anyway, that's exactly what you say to do. So either way, what you're saying is a form of meditation. And yeah, there's no doubt that relaxing and listening can help communication sometimes. On the other hand, it somewhat goes against the usual (I think good) advice of letting your tulpa talk when they will. You could say there's a dichotomy there, and probably some people could do with more listening less talking, and some could do with the reverse.

 

So, I don't think it's a good idea to generalise your personal experience to what would be useful for everyone in this case. My impression of some people is that trying to do what you do can be deeply frustrating and discouraging, or encourage people to associate stray thoughts with tulpas.

 

I realise you do say this isn't a replacement for typical forcing, and maybe I'm being overly critical about this. But you motivate this slightly oddly. It seems like you intend this to be used - and have had success for it - with a tulpa already vocal, albeit weak. Within those bounds, this might be useful, but I'd be slightly concerned outside them.

[Luminesce]

Yeah, I'm always iffy on how to talk about meditation. Because I know there are more forms, but I just don't know what they are. I refer to meditation as the general act of relaxing physically and focusing on something mentally (not literally focusing, but..), that something being up to the individual. Some people like Tewi go for "silence", which is an anti-clutter type of meditation that surely has a name I'm not aware of. Personally, my type of meditation is just relaxing physically and directing my attention inward. Whether that's taking time to think about things or talk to my tulpas or whatever, as long as I'm focused on just the one thing and not the outside world (including "everyday worries"), that's what I consider meditation.

 

But yeah no idea how to actually refer to the empty-your-mind meditation. And even when you think it's implied, I think a lot of people are like me and are a lot looser with what they do, or at least have their own forms of it. Meditation doesn't mean the same thing to everyone basically.