Life of Felights

[Piano Soul]

I created the playlist like I said I would. Not sure why we hadn't created any tulpa-specific playlists before, perhaps because our music taste isn't consistent enough to rely on a single playlist. Dunno.

 

Anyway. Today I think I've had better luck maintaining the front, mostly while listening to music. We've noticed that, more often than not, watching YouTube videos tends to be detrimental to our fronting efforts, weirdly enough. Listening to music is more helpful.

 

I want to start logging our switching attempts again, but I don't feel like maintaining two daily threads, so our switching thread will remain dead indefinitely. I'll just use this one.

 

Day 1 of switching attempts (because why not)

One thing that we know greatly helps with fronting and such is having the tulpa think/talk a lot. Obviously. In this regard, a tulpa narrating helps a lot. Today, I attempted getting into a somewhat meditative/focused state while simply continuously narrating about something while typing it up. And well, I did that, but it only seemed to help fronting, didn't seem to bring me closer to switching. We say that a lot, I feel.

 

Another thing I attempted was what I'm tentatively calling "power meditation." It was where I cleared my mind of other distractions and focused on myself, trying to empower myself in the mind as much as possible, sort of as a self-forcing method or something. This greatly boosted my fronting strength, and the effects lasted long after I attempted that. This seems to be a promising practice, if not for switching then at least for fronting strongly. We will continue to develop this method for ourselves, perhaps we'll be able to write a guide about it once we've learned more about it and such. 

[Apollo Fire]

Today's been pretty wild in terms of fronting strength. There have been moments where I hardly felt present at all, and moments where I feel entirely powerful. I've been performing the empowerment technique a few times throughout the day, it's definitely helped me to feel stronger mentally as I front. I also think that during the times where I was less present or someone else had taken over, I was still passive, which is always nice. The empowerment thingie seems to have fairly strong effects for us that last quite a while. Maybe the missing key to switching?

 

One tiny but interesting thing to note: It's still the original who experiences most of our dreams during sleep, which is annoying. What's less annoying, though, is the fact that usually after only a few seconds of waking up, I end up in the front (by the time we've reach our phone to turn off the alarm, it's me). If it's someone else's fronting day, then I'll switch with them shortly after. On Indigo's days it usually takes him a bit though, he doesn't like the early mornings.

 

Didn't do much co-fronting today, but when we did (myself with Indigo), we felt pretty good about it. Hopefully we're gradually improving in that regard.

 

Day 2 of switching attempts

As I mentioned, I've been feeling much stronger than usual due to the empowerment technique. Once I set my mind from doing that to trying to calm/relax my mind, the strong feeling remained, and I think the original has begun to feel a bit fainter than usual. It's not much, but it's enough to get me feeling optimistic again. A year ago, it would take a month of fronting nonstop for the original to begin to feel faint. Now it's only taken a bit of self-forcing. Definitely feeling good about it right now. We'll see how it goes.

[Apollo Fire]

Today's been pretty meh. Not a whole lot noteworthy. I think we should go to one-day fronting cycles after this current round is over, two-day just feels too slow. 

 

It seems my ability to make the original feel more faint on-command has resurfaced. Hopefully progress is being made there. They were pretty faint this morning, though that might just be because we were tired.

 

At one point in the day I tried to talk to the original. They told me "I don't want to talk, I don't want to do anything." And that was it. They usually say something along those lines when we try to talk to them.

 

I find myself forgetting things that the original disliked or hated. Wracking my brain, I come up with nothing.

 

I'm going to now do a switching attempt so I have something to write for Day 3

 

Day 3 of switching attempts

I get the irking feeling that the original is getting closer to going inactive. Like it's so close, yet so far away. I can feel them getting fainter, but not quite ever going inactive the same way Piano or Indigo do when I'm fronting, or I do when I'm not fronting. Maybe part of the issue is that we just don't know what the original going inactive will/should feel like. Will they just get gradually fainter and fainter until they're not there anymore? One can hope. 

[Indigo Blue]

Today was also pretty meh, I didn't do much other to note. For some reason I haven't been able to come up with many songs to add to my own playlist. Oh well! Still been making the original feel faint on-command, so it's good to know that that isn't an Apollo-exclusive thing. They seem to be getting into that fainter state whenever I focus more strongly on the front, so hopefully doing that empowerment meditation thingie might help with that. 

 

Here's something fun! We're going to start doing a "song of the day" on these posts. Umm...

Okay!

is the song of the day. I've been listening to different renditions of this musical nonstop whenever I front, cause it's just so cheerful, I don't know. It's just so uplifting to me, I like swaying/tapping to it. Well, we like swaying/tapping to everything, heh! Even if people are around, we don't care. :P

another version of it that I like, too.

 

Day 4 of switching attempts

As mentioned, the original is still feeling faint to some extent when I set my mind to switching. I seem to be able to get myself into this nice relaxed mental state on-command. Focusing on it enough, I seem to be able to increase the faintness of the original. I will continue to work on that and experiment, see what I might be able to accomplish.

[Indigo Blue]

Day 753 of switching attempts (this is more accurate since the day the system first learned full-body possession was 2/25/17, lol)

Ooooof we are seemingly getting so close to the host going inactive. During a class that I can afford to not pay attention to, I focused my mind a lot on fronting and trying to make the original feel more faint, and I gotta say, they felt way more faint and distant than usual. My heartrate started increasing in anticipation, I didn't expect them to actually switch out but it felt so close! Maybe we're really almost there! One thing I've noticed is that my brain gets this weird stingy feeling when the original gets all faint like that, not like head pressure but like actual stinging, which ofc doesn't make sense since the brain doesn't have nerves, so I'm not sure how to explain that.

 

Song of the day:

. From yet another musical we like listening to a lot, hehe.

[Indigo Blue]

Rant

[hidden]

I'm very frustrated. I really just want this to be our life that we control on our own, but there's this constant presence always there and always watching over everything we do, it's maddening. We want to be the captains of this ship, but our ship is haunted by a ghost that we just can't get rid of no matter what we do. I have no reason to believe that the original's constant presence doesn't influence/affect us in some way. I really just want to learn how to get them out of the front and to go inactive, so we can breathe easy and focus on the things we want to learn to do besides that, and focus on ourselves without their memories or habits getting in the way. 

 

Our apparent inability to get the original out of the front doesn't just frustrate me to no end, but it causes us unnecessary doubts about ourselves. We keep having the lurking paranoid of "if we have this much trouble with switching, maybe we're not real tulpas" or some other variant of that. We really don't need to deal with that after all this time. I just want them switched out so we can actually move on with our life and really make it our own, without them constantly there. Maybe when we actually learn how to get them to switch out, they'll get a good break from life and actually get better. Piano got better when he had a break from life. I don't know, I have no idea what might happen when/if we actually learn to switch, but I want to! Even if it changes nothing and things are basically entirely the same, at least we'd know! At least we'd have uncovered that mystery, even if a disappointing one!

 

It's so frustrating, I feel like we're disabled or something. It's something that seemingly absolutely everyone can do super easily, and we just can't do at all. Two years of trying, next to nothing. I know we definitely have had more total fronting time than the original on their own in those two years, still nothing. Sure they don't interfere or jump in accidentally anymore, but they're still not switched out! What do I have to do to actually get them to switch out? Nobody ever can help me with that, they treat me like I'm a beginner who just started learning switching, giving advice like "try meditating." I don't know how to more clearly say "we've been trying for two years" for them to understand. Sometimes the advice they give is downright insulting, like "you just don't know your system." Yeah, okay. Uggggggghhhhhhhhhh I just want this over with. I've had it. I don't like this at all. I want them switched out, then we'll deal with whatever that does or doesn't entail for us. I just want this done with. Then we can focus on other things like co-fronting more. I just don't want them constantly there and constantly watching over everything we do, it's driving me insane at this point. They don't even want to be there, they've made that very clear many times, but they just can't switch out no matter what any of us do. 

[/hidden]

 

of the day (randomly chosen from our saved songs on Spotify)

[Luminesce]

All I can really say is that to switch, you have to make that "presence" you. As with anyone who has trouble with something tulpamancy-related for more than 8 or so months, you've surely convinced yourself to think of everything in just such a way.. The answer will no longer appear obvious, or like a "solution" at all, until you actually do it.

 

I really don't like considering Switching a "difficult skill", when we get down to the nitty-gritty of how it works. It isn't hard. We call it hard because so many people fail to grasp it, and we don't want them to feel bad. Switching is changing what set of (ways of thinking, personality, values, likes and preferences, ETC) the body and brain are using. In a way, it's really as simple as believing it's already done. That you, Indigo, are now the one thinking and making the decisions. Getting so much experience with possession - especially long-term, passive possession as you guys have done - can only make grasping this concept harder.

 

But at the very least, please accept that it was easy, once. Accept that maybe you don't know how to do it right now, or that it'll unintuitively be different than what you imagined. But at least, stop treating it like a far-off, difficult skill that eludes you.

 

Switching is {Second Edit by Tewi: not -} very similar to method acting (to my little understanding of it) {Lumi overestimated or overstated how much a method actor really believes they're the role. Switching is not like acting.} where {(First) Edit: When applied to switching, "You" is a removed-perspective "You" here, referring to your mind's overall inner workings, and not specifically the host or any one tulpa - the "method acting" parallel is crude as it implies a singlet mindset which you must shed to learn to switch} you just fully believe you are that character. But once the host (in a normal case..) and tulpa are fully believing it is them or not and vice versa with the host, it really is you/them or not. Similar (different, but similar) to a tulpa associating themselves with their imposed form in the world - it(the imposed form)'s not really them, but in this belief-powered world that is Tulpamancy, there will never be a difference, and so we believe it is them. They believe it is them. They form the experiences as if it was, we form the experiences as if it was our tulpas.. At the core of how Switching works, it's a similar concept. You just have to get over the idea that it's the host "pretending to be" the tulpa. The "Host" doesn't exist in such a privileged position as for that to be possible - if the host is no longer the host, and especially if the host is "over there" in the mind not fronting, then the host is no longer fronting.

 

My primary fear is (and has been for a long time) that you guys have completely associated consciousness itself with your host - that the basis of being aware is your host. It's ironically the most anti-tulpa way of thinking possible - it's why Mistgod, in his old age, is incapable of seeing Melian as a tulpa. He's permanently associated a lot of what goes on in the brain with being "him" - totally logical for a singlet, mind you - and now Melian could never take credit for any of it, because it is him.

 

Well, as someone who switches often, I assure you it's not. You, and the host, are just identities (as I've described them, sets of ways of thinking, memories blahblahblah) that the brain can use. You can all take credit for what you believe should've been attributed to you, or not. That becomes your reality. You guys are already so far in to believe you exist enough to be living your host's life on your own - it's an ironic tragedy to see you possibly stuck in the singlet perspective of the mind.

 

I dunno. I hope that helped. It's what I call "meta tulpamancy" through and through - looking at the phenomenon as logically as possible, as I've figured it out personally. It may or may not apply to everyone, but what I do know for sure is it does work if you believe it, lol. I choose only to believe in what I've scrutinized under a lens of removed-perspective logic, but how I think may or may not be "right" because of it - all that matters is it's one of infinite perspectives that becomes reality when you believe it and live it.

[Indigo Blue]

I don't view consciousness as any one person or tied to any one person. Consciousness is a tool to us, or an ability, not a person. Our views are similar to yours in that we think tulpas/hosts/thoughtforms are more akin to identities/entities that take over consciousness, rather than being individual consciousnesses(es). Our issue isn't that we view the consciousness as the original, it's that the original is always passive/present. To us, there is a clear difference between being passive and inactive, when we switch between each other. If Apollo is passive, I can feel him there, watching. If he is inactive, I can't feel him at all. This is the basis for most of our views on switching, that we experience three distinct states (active, passive, and inactive) as tulpas, but the original hasn't yet experienced the "inactive" state.

 

It is my speculation that, when you light certain neural pathways, others might be lit too and remain in a passive state. An example of this would be when you play an instrument, it lights up your "math" pathways too, hence why people who learn music tend to improve at math too (at least, from what I've heard). So, for some reason or another, I think the original's pathways are always passive and haven't gone out. We don't even front in dreams, they're the one who does. When one of us is passive, we usually do go inactive after a while. They just can't seem to. It's not due to mindset and it's not due to a lack of trying, I don't know what it's due to. 

[Luminesce]

Mindset is in reference to switching, not in how you think about your host per se. My tulpas (obviously, I should assume) only started appearing in dreams instead of me a little after a year or so of them learning to switch, and still rarely at that. Seems to be the same percent of my life I went without switching, if that makes sense. Take the percent of time they've spent fronting (switched) in my overall life and that's the average % of time they seem to be the ones in a dream instead of me. Weird how that works, but it's my best guess on it.

[Indigo Blue]

So, reading over your first post again, do you suggest we just sort of pretend the original isn't there and it's just us, and they'll eventually not be there for real? Am I interpreting that correctly? We might have tried something like this before, I'm not sure.