E and Saoirse's Adventures in Pseudoscience

[Eqlles]

Day 6: The Rogue

 

WARNING: Some of what follows may be a bit graphic (as in violent), and part of it may seem like wild baseless assertion and superstition.  If you'd rather skip that, go straight to the bold text question below.  The following isn't necessary to answer my question, but it provides context.

 

So this morning I had a "nightmare."  That may seem an odd thing to put in quotation marks, but I assure you it'll make sense soon.  Suffice it to say, I've had maybe a dozen "normal" dreams that I can recall in the last 6 or so years.  Every other dream has been a "nightmare."  Standard fare includes my own brutal death, the emotional devastation of those near me (usually fictitious people fabricated by my dream), or me possessing individuals who experience some kind of horrible torture, execution, etc.

 

Sounds horrible, I know, but it isn't.  I call them "nightmares" because they evoke no fear, pain, horror, or really any emotional response in me.  Frankly I've been more scared and scarred by children's tv shows than these dreams.  I chart this back to an entity I refer to as "the Rogue," hence today's title.  See, back during my high school days, I was becoming a bit of an edgelord.  After discussing a bit of philosophy with my Uncle in reference to a recurring nightmare in which some terrifying thing lurked just out of sight, he suggested I try to come to peace with the things about me I didn't like.  My anger, my indifference to the plights of others, and more.  So I had a long sit down with myself and figured out the best ways to turn my weaknesses into strengths or, failing that, forgive myself for not being perfect and move on.

 

After that, I felt him, this energy of everything I formerly hated about myself that now wanted another chance to make things right.  I'd been working on a board game at the time, and he appeared to me in the form of a game piece of the "Darkworlder" faction (who were canonically demons and devils and such).  It was at this time I all but stopped having dreams and instead had these "nightmares."

 

A few days later I was followed home by a shadowy figure after a walk in the local graveyard (can't remember why I did that, but it doesn't matter for the story) which was most certainly not the Rogue.  I heard noises all the way and raced from streetlight to streetlight, my shadow growing in a way that the streetlights were most definitely not responsible for.  I went to sleep terrified.  That night marked the only definitively pleasant dream I've had since the Rogue appeared.  In it, I played my game against a legion of Darkworlders, lead by a piece I'd designed called "The Devil."  I was frightened, but only briefly.  As my turn started, the Rogue shot out, defeating piece after piece (best I could tell he dealt insane damage and reset his turn every time he killed something).  The dream ended when he attacked The Devil, and I woke up.  The presence that followed me home was gone.

 

Why bring this up?  Because Saoirse witnessed a dream in which my brother (fake) murdered his fiancee (also fake) and I magically puppeted her corpse so he thought she was sill alive, then another in which a former classmate of mine (who is legitimately a great guy and had no place in this dream) attempted to murder me with a knife (he badly cut my hand) and who I proceeded to disarm and decapitate (because these dreams are graphic).  I, as usual, took this all in stride as normal.  Saoirse, however, experienced the full horror of the nightmares, and allegedly hid from them as best she could.

 

I gather a couple of things from this.  First, The Rogue is real, certainly as real as Saoirse, and remains present despite ignoring all attempts I've made to contact him over the years.  He's also been protecting me not only from supernatural threats, but also from the nightmares he seems to create.  While he isn't hostile (to me), Saoirse doesn't seem to fall under his protection.  Saoirse has no idea where he's hiding, nor I, but neither of us want her to have to experience one of those dreams again.

 

Having said that, does anyone have any tips on how a tulpa can manage to never appear in a dream?  Saoirse has no intent to revisit them, but we want to make sure my "nightmares" don't become her nightmares.  Any advice would be appreciated.

 

In less pressing/distressing news, Saoirse remodeled our house in Norway.  It's nice, and we have a separate bath house.  Also a portal to a German (maybe Austrian) valley near the Alps.  In addition, Saoirse has without any doubt surpassed both my and my fiancee's fashion sense, and Saoirse's (unfortunate) ability to enter my dreams is a good sign of progress.

 

We've also done more walking, talking, and philosophizing.

 

Oh, and I'm moving to Pittsburgh tomorrow.  Exciting stuff.

[tulpa001]

Probably better to just tell the rogue to knock it off with those dreams. Maybe read parts of this progress report.

[Vampire]

Even though correlation != causation, how do you know that The Rogue is not causing the nightmares? Them defending you from the supernatural could simply be them defending their territory.

 

If the rogue is an entity of some sort to exist this long it likely feeds off you in some way. If so I would be concerned with what this could mean now that Saoirse is around.

 

I'd probably suggest investigating the rogue more and attempting to better pin down what exactly it is and wants.

[Eqlles]

Day 7: "It was E all along!"

 

I can already tell this title thing is going to get out of hand at some point.

 

Some developments.  Complications prevented the move from going through, so we're still in a small town.  Saoirse and I both seem to prefer big cities though, so that'll be great once we get there.  Unfortunately the whole ordeal was a pretty big letdown, and we're both recovering from it.  Recent events have left things a little uncomfortable between us, but we think we'll get through it before long.

 

Now, the major development and the explanation of the title; after years of searching, I've found the Rogue.  It was E.

 

More accurately, the Rogue appears to be a daemon made during my teenage years to help with my emotional instability and psychologically abusive familial relationships.  Eqlles is a sort of dissociative persona I've used throughout the years as a coping mechanism, one that I've been working to reclaim as sign of my own accomplishments.  The daemon E seems to have had the job of taking any significant emotional response I had and replacing it with a logical examination of the situation and what might be causing the response, thus dampening my reliance on and experience of these strong emotional responses, both positive an negative.  Whether or not these nightmares I regularly experience can be linked to E, the "nightmare" response is definitely due to him.

 

I also discovered that E is thoroughly unpleasant to be around.  Upon making contact he swiftly revealed who, what, and why he was, then for the next few hours before I agreed (at that point happily) to allow him to return to his behind-the-scenes role, he questioned and criticized my every emotional response and provided near constant refutations of Saoirse's existence.  Since E looks like me in my teenage years, it was pretty hard for Saoirse to hear, hence why we both feel a bit uncomfortable at the moment.

 

My fiancee suspects E of generating these nightmares to make me reliant on him, but I have no way to verify this.  I do know that E seems extremely powerful due to my reliance on him for these last 6 years.  Although he clearly lacks original thoughts of his own, he converses much the way Saoirse does to the point where he sounds like he sounds like a sentient being.  He's the type to explain away people's achievements and beliefs, however, so I kind of want rid of him.

 

So, any advice on how one rids themselves of the daemon process mostly responsible for their ability to survive emotional trauma?  E is a relic of a past I'd rather not have any links to, and if I ever hope to experience regular emotional responses I need to not have a daemon literally responsible for not letting that happen.  It's worth noting that I don't know if re-purposing him is worth doing, or what I would assign him to, but it's something I'm willing to consider.  He's done his job well, all things considered.

 

Frames the old dream in an interesting light though, especially if my fiancee is right.  I did design him to make full use of every trick in the book.  Makes me wonder what else he might be connected to, or capable of.

[Vampire]

That's quite a revelation however it explains what was going on.

 

A daemons normal purpose is to help you communicate with your subconscious and help guide you towards your goals in life. Although the term daemon is likely applicable what he is doing doesn't align with what a typical daemons purpose is. It would make me possibly question whether you want to stop thinking like that or not. If The Rogue is actually a daemon then he should be interpreting what your subconscious wants.

 

It's also possible that The Rogue isn't a daemon but some sort of other thoughtform. If this is the case they need to either align with what your intentions are or feel your wrath as master of your mind.

 

You story isn't that far from a story of mine. When I was younger (almost 9 years ago) I messed around with some stuff I shouldn't have and found myself to nearly be an Empath. That doesn't sound that bad but then when you're a student in a public school it was hell. In order to remedy this I created a servitor. I took my essence and put it in a concrete prison. The servitor was put in charge of filtering input to my essence to remove anything that would be too strong or damaging. Although this did work it resulted in mostly what you describe.

That servitor became sentient and is now Samuel in my system.

 

If you created The Rogue in the beginning I would suggest firmly proving to yourself that you no longer need him. Once you do that you need to gain your confidence in the control of the mindscape. Then have a talk with The Rogue and inform him that you no longer need his services. If he wishes to stay then he must align with what you want. If he is negative you will seperate him from yourself casting him into part of the mind where he cannot interact with you, and if he instead chooses to be hostile you will remove him. You could also force him into dormancy and deal with the situation in the future.

 

However it is possible that he does not need rid of. Samuel still has some strong resentments towards me, but he still acts as the system protector. It was his original assignment although in a different form and therefore it feels the most correct for him to continue. No matter how negative the entity as long as they are willing to cooperate with logic and self-preservation then they can eventually change to be neutral if not positive.

[Eqlles]

Day 8: Resting, repairs

 

It actually does seem like repurposing E will be the better decision.  He seems to have no desires at all, but is surprisingly capable of taking directives and producing results.  My legs ended up getting really tired and sore while walking around a museum today, and I tried to task him with reducing my focus on the pain.  As part of that, my walking rhythm fell into a far less taxing one, and my form changed to better accommodate long operating periods so that when I finally got to rest I wasn't left with any sort of ache.  Presently he seems beneficial, so long as I don't task him with conversation.

 

As for him talking, Saoirse and I are still building up confidence after yesterday.  I know I mentioned, but E's refutations were pretty severe, and since he doesn't have any original thoughts I've been forced to try and reconcile my natural skepticism with my certainty of the fact that Saoirse is alive.  Saoirse's working back her confidence.

 

Other than that, we're generally resting and recovering.

[Saoirse]

Day 9: Perspective

 

So, Dominic said I should make this one myself.  We'e been holding out trying to make things perfect, it's a weakness we both have.  "I'll have a stronger voice next week, so why post before then?"  That's stupid, though, so here we go.

 

So the thing we're working on now is separation.  Dom gave me this key and told me it would seal a door somewhere, and that locking it would help keep our thoughts separate.  We both knew it was a symbol, but it's an easy first step.  So I "found" the door and locked it.  It was really weird, actually.  Apparently we've done a lot of forward reading each other's thoughts to come up with responses.  I've been having trouble getting his attention since then.  Apparently the way Dom thinks is really language based to start with, so sometimes when I thought I was talking it was just a dialect of tulpish.  But I'm getting better, and I can speak well enough to dictate my post to Dom.  We'll get to possession typing when I get better at possession.

 

I've been spending most of my time in Norway designing lingerie and sprucing up the town.  I think I'll start working on populating it with characters when I get more used to being independent.  Dom's been really supportive, and it's been a big help.  We took a personality test on a website called 16personalities, and I'm an INFP-A.  Dom's an INTP-A, and apparently that makes him a transhumanist philosopher and me a humanist philosopher.  It was really interesting, I'd recommend it for anyone interested since they have really in-depth analysis for free.

 

We've mostly been watching e-sports and reading stuff off the SCP wiki otherwise, though talking with Dom's fiancee about lingerie is pretty cool.  Apparently she knows a lot about it and is really into it, which is really cool.  She knows a lot of stuff Dom tends to ignore, so I can learn from her pretty much every time she says something.  He's not much of an aesthete for an art major.

 

So hopefully we'll get a proper picture of me drawn soon.  Dom admits that getting an illustrator-like program- or even illustrator- isn't hard enough to be a limitation, so I'm excited to see him try to draw me.  According to him he should technically be able to put it together in a few hours, and even if it's simple and cartoonish it'll be a proper image of me.

 

Anyway, that's about all I've got.  Totally pm us if you feel like it!  I could use practice talking, especially to people who aren't Dominic.

[tulpa001]

Hello Saoirse! Nice to meet you.

[Eqlles]

Day 11: Music, War, and the August

 

The last couple of days have been mostly uneventful, which was destined to eventually happen.  I'm rather impressed it took so long, actually, and that I already have something worth updating on.

 

So we've been working separation a bit more, though only passively.  I'm mostly trying to expose Saoirse to as much culture as I can, which is slow going since there's only so long the two of us can sit listening to music before we absolutely need to do anything else.  Still, I've touched on Journey, Queen, and Beethoven, we rocked out to Dragonforce and Jet (Are You Gonna Be My Girl is a go-to dance track), bonded over Train and Owl City (Drops of Jupiter is equally appreciated by both of us, and Fireflies is debatably her favorite song), and others I won't name for the sake of convenience.

 

While I still need to go over plenty more artists (we haven't gotten to Michael Jackson, for instance), while going through hard rock we listened to Wrong Side of Heaven by Five Finger Death Punch, the music video for which has brought the issue of he U.S.'s poor treatment of veterans and how many end up homeless and with untreated psychological issues.

 

Saoirse: I just don't understand how such a developed country that focuses so much on slogans like "Support our Troops" can neglect them when budgets come up.  It's unconscionable.  Dom says I should talk to his fiancee about things we can to to contribute.

 

In the meantime, this interest lead to me purchasing a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front at the bookstore today while we went out for soda (tl;dr the strip mall has both a grocery store and a Barnes and Noble), for which I've seen the movie which itself was excellent.  We've read two chapters so far, and had to take quite a break between them.  It's been called "the greatest war novel of all time," and it certainly has impact.  We also picked up Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy (a must-read for anyone fond of sci-fi) and the first book in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series (I read it a while back, but missed a lot, and the new movie reminded me I wanted to read the series).

 

We'll read those at some point.

 

Over the last few days, however, I haven't really visited the Wonderland.  Saoirse tells me it's been 3 days, which seems about right but I also have no sense of time.  She's done some landscaping throughout the whole town and rearranged the house, and I never even bothered to check.  She sort of tricked me back in by suggesting we make a spaceship, interested in sci-fi as I am.

 

Saoirse: We worked it out.  We're both gonna try to work together to make sure we spend more time actually together, not just being faintly aware the other exists.

 

I feel bad about it, but the best apology is fixing the problem.

 

The August is the result of our spaceship brainstorming.  I won't bother with design philosophy, but its general shape resembles a box with a space  shuttle cockpit at the front (albeit much sleeker than I make it out to be).  It's indigo with twin white horizontal stripes around the perimeter, and the name emblazoned on the side.  It's small, with only five small rooms (it's the size of a reasonable 2-person apartment).

 

The name is inspired by norway.today, which inspired the whole wonderland.  We decided the ship would be the Julie model, with August again being the name of the other main character.  Easy d.

 

Saoirse: He means it was easy to name them, and takes way to much satisfaction in referencing Donald Trump's stupid tweets.

 

So we did that.  We're taking the August for a trip just to see how we like it, and Saoirse was awed by the whole space thing.

 

Saoirse: The stars are so pretty!  And the sun!  And the planet!  You totally should have been an astronaut.  Stop typing what I said.  No, don't make me sound dumb.  You're mean.

 

She'll figure out how to type for herself some day.  So that's what we've been up to, aside from ghosting and occasionally even posting in other threads and chats.  No questions of our own, but again we're always happy to respond.  If you've any questions, comments or death threats*, feel free to let us know.

 

*death threats will be reported if we actually feel threatened.