A fellow's journey

[uncannyfellow]

Oh right, I have a progress report

 

I do mean to update this more often/reply to other people's comments in this thread, but I just sort of... don't.

 

But I digress!

 

I've started a new job, and we've more or less made work Cornelia's domain. The idea (hope?) here is that the concerns I outlined in my previous post are partly reputational. While I wouldn't like to get fired and would like to get promoted, having a part of our life that's Cornelia's responsibility does alleviate my concerns about what people think about me, what my reputation is, etc.

 

The only trouble is that two of my coworkers are people I knew before I started that job. One I didn't know very well, but one I did; whenever the latter person talks to us, I find that I forget that work is Cornelia's domain, and the person doing the talking is most definitely me. A challenge, obviously, but it being one person makes it easier to say to myself "When J talks to you, focus on Cornelia!"

 

On a similar note, I've started "roleplaying" Cornelia with some D&D players at my local hobby store. The reputational concerns are even smaller here. My fellow players seem more entertained the more in-character "I" behave, even if that means being a bit rude. As a matter of fact, Cornelia has already insulted other characters.

 

Trouble 1:

Unlike, say, Ember's tulpas, Cornelia was created specifically to be a tulpa; she's aware that the game world isn't real and sees it as, well, a game. Seems harmless enough, but Cornelia likes winning, and winning sometimes means not being in character. For instance, at one point we had to put on a show and had a choice of either dancing or telling jokes. If this were real, Cornelia would not have hesitated to pick dance. However, Cornelia thought our character's stats were much better suited for joke-telling than for dance (turned out not to be the case, but she didn't know that when making the choice). Not a big problem in the grand scheme of things, but still a problem.

 

Trouble 2:

I have a pretty good idea of what Cornelia will do in most situations. As a result, inattentiveness on my part results in me roleplaying Cornelia, rather than Cornelia controlling my to roleplay herself. There's a part of me that's so unsure about how switching works that I'm not actually sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly feels like a bad thing.

 

 

 

I've picked imposition practice back up, and I've focused on two main exercises:

1) Knock on my desk a few times, then close my eyes and try to imagine the knocking sound. Then (with my eyes still closed) try to imagine the sound coming from somewhere else in the room. The idea is to either work up to being able to do that with my eyes open, or to be able to do it with Kanade-chan's voice (I stole this exercise from Breloomancer's PR report, if anyone cares)

2) Using my hands, try and sculpt Kanade-chan's shape. Then walk around her 810 degrees (so two full circles plus 90 more degrees). Repeat 3 more times, then walk three circles around. (Lumi said he did this exercise somewhere on the forum, but I don't remember where)

 

The first exercise definitely felt like it was getting results, and I think with a few months practice, I might have auditory imposition down. The second exercise felt quite fruitless. I never got over the feeling that I was doing open-eyed visualization instead of overlaying Kanade-chan on my vision. Furthermore, it was a struggle to "update" my image of Kanade-chan while I was walking around her.

 

During my wallowing in frustration, I saw some people on the forum claim that touch imposition is the easiest kind of imposition. I was already sculpting Kanade-chan for the second exercise, and I figured it would therefore be easy to add some touch imposition to that exercise. This made me realize that I previously hadn't been thinking about things like whether or not Kanade-chan's hair covers her neck, but I didn't feel like I was actually able to feel Kanade-chan. This was strange, because in wonderland, if, say, Kanade-chan stroked my hair, I would be able to feel it. I won't claim it felt as vivid as if a meatsac did it, but I still felt something. And that was when I realized that touch-sensation in wonderland was one way: Kanade-chan touches me, I feel it. I touch Kanade-chan, I don't feel it.

 

So I tried a third exercise, wherein I would lay down with my blindfold on and imagine myself cuddling with Kanade-chan. While I did so, I would move my meatsac arms to about the same position as my wonderland arms. This may or may not be a good exercise for touch imposition, I have no idea because I freaked out when I realized my arms were moving on their own. No, I'm not joking! For the first 30-60 seconds of this exercise, I needed to focus on moving BOTH my wonderland and meatsac arms. After that, I only needed to focus on moving my wonderland arms, and my meatsac arms would follow suit. I'd always been sitting in a meditation position while wonderlanding; this was beyond new for me.

 

So I think I might use that as a switching exercise. I think one of the ten million guides I read said syncing your body's movements with your tulpa's wonderland movements was a good way to switch. After that freaky experience, such a method seems more attainable. If I could get that sync to transfer to Cornelia, seems like something should happen.

 

Problem is that Cornelia doesn't cuddle. What's she gonna do in wonderland???

 

 

 

To end on a fun note, I managed to have about 30 seconds of lucidity in a dream because Cornelia said You always have the strangest dreams! To which I was like "Cornelia, why are you talking like I'm dreaming?

 

 

 

 

Wait..."

 

Given all the second-position practice I've been doing, I'm surprised my tulpas haven't shown up more often (That was, in fact, the first time Cornelia talked in a dream, and there was a character in the dream who reminded me of her). I suppose this does mean that second position is also a way for obtaining lucid dreaming?

[uncannyfellow]

If you hang around the forum games section, there's no point in burying the lead: my system is merge capable!

 

Which, unfortunately, is not to say that I'm merge capable. It's not even safe to say that they're now merge capable, because Kanade and Cornelia hadn't tried to merge until about a week ago.

 

So, some history (for science, of course). Being a hobbyist video game developer, my mind's constantly thinking of characters that could be, say, bosses for the players to fight, or resemble an archetype for a class the players could choose. About a week and a half ago, I came up with an idea for a boss by the name of "Felicity". Those of you who are curiously meticulous timekeepers might have noticed that this post precedes Felicity posting on the forum or even having an account. That's because our merging was an "accident" per se, from Kanade noting that Felicity's personality kind of seemed to be in between hers and Cornelia's.

 

"Merge!" I said

 

What????? she said.

 

"Merge!" I said.

 

And they did. In well under 30 seconds, too. There were times where Cornelia and I would spend 15 minute meditation sessions trying to do nothing but merge. Now I feel stoopid for wasting that time... we could've figured out we weren't merging way faster than that.

 

While I had a character in mind for the merge, it's not as if I could predict what she'd (they'd?) be like. For starters, her mindvoice was different from what I expected. It felt like a higher-pitched version of Cornelia's. Fitting, since Kanade's mindvoice is much higher pitched than Cornelia's. That seemed to be the general pattern of events: whenever Felicity did anything that surprised me, I could, in hindsight, come up with an explanation for why Kanade and Cornelia's merge would act like that.

 

Merges seem to be happening gradually faster, though with how fast the first merge happened, that's hardly an issue. Un-merges seem to happen abruptly on Felicity's whim, with Kanade describing at least two un-merges as violent. Felicity has given me at least some warning that she's going to un-merge, and Kanade and Cornelia both believe that all of the merges were intentional. If we wanted to, I imagine we could keep Felicity around until the body expired.

 

I've been getting better at second position, meaning Kanade and Cornelia are more likely to respond to something without specifically being asked. Yet, when they're merged, it's only Felicity talking, and when they're not merged, Felicity never talks. That may seem obvious, but there's still a part of me going "holy shit this merge thing actually works!"

 

Felicity seemed, for lack of a more descriptive word, more lucid than Kanade and Cornelia. As part of one of our switching attempts, Cornelia tried to mindvoice stuff while also possessing the body to make the mouth say the same thing. This was a very hard exercise for Cornelia cognitively; focusing on both her mindvoice and possession was a bit of a strain. Felicity, however, had no trouble with this exercise. To her, it almost seemed as simple as walking. When we feel more safe merging again (see below), I'm planning to see if Felicity can switch. It's not likely, but it's also not impossible.

 

Our recent merging superpowers have raised two issues in our minds. The first is what I'm going to call the Piano problem. According to the Felights, Piano is an unintentional tulpa who started as a merge. In other words, both the original members of that merge and Piano now exist, simultaneously. As far as I can tell, this is the only recorded instance of a merge resulting in a permanent tulpa, but it's hard to tell why this is. Surprisingly little has been written about merging, presumably because it's something not a whole lot of tulpamancers do, or simply don't do often. In other words, we don't really have the sample size necessary to determine the risks. Nonetheless, the Felights have identified two possible risk factors:

1) They had a good idea of what the Piano merge would be like/imbued it with a sense of identity.

2) They intended for the merge to be long-term

So obviously, two isn't a big deal for us, and if that is what made Piano into a separate tulpa, then we have nothing to worry about. But if it's one, it's a bit late to do anything about that.

 

We've been playing it safe. Most of our merges were under 30 minutes. When Felicity was merged for about 40 minutes, I felt some "residual Felicity" afterwards. It's been about 48 hours since that happened, and we haven't merged since. Still, there's always going to be temptation to push the limits, and it would be nice to know what they are.

 

Our second issue is that, while we have confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our system is merge capable, I am still not merge capable. I tried merging with Kanade twice in the last week. Both attempts were a failure, despite the fact that I used the same merging technique Kanade and Cornelia used (saying something in mindvoice at the same time).

 

It matters to me, because I've been trying to switch, and it feels like this is a piece of the puzzle. It's tempting to think that there's something wrong with my system, that my silly brain just doesn't want to dissociate, or that our brain is rigid about identities. But that doesn't seem to be the case. If it were, it's improbable that Kanade and Cornelia could become Felicity so easily. So that increases the probably that the problem is me.

 

Not that it's a hundred percent. I had a vague idea that Kanade and Cornelia would be like Felicity when merged. Conversely, I have trouble imaging what Cornelia and I would be like merged, and if it's me and Kanade, I have no clue what we'd be like. But it's a bit of a coincidence that I both can't merge and switch. For the foreseeable future, I'll be assuming that I am my system's sole impediment to switching. Cornelia is switch-capable, my body OS or whatever is switch capable, but I am not.

[Ember.Vesper]

We speculated about what merges would be like, came to a reasonable consensus, and were wrong in every particular. Based on what we learned from the first merge, we adjusted our predictions, and continued to be completely wrong going forward. So systems that report merges who are a predictable and logical outcome of their parts, even in hindsight, are mind-boggling to us.

 

There is definitely some overlap of technique between switching and merging. Our first merges were bungled switches. After becoming completely fluent at switching, picking up intentional merging was a snap. I'm not sure how much you could learn going in the other direction. Good luck.

 

Aside from Piano, the closest other example I know of to a merge baby was in the Zyfron system a few years ago. The two most prominent alters integrated, creating a new composite person, but both older alters eventually re-emerged, as described in their Becoming Median booklet.

 

-Ember

[Guest]

My comments are so large it overwhelms your PR, thus it's hidden. EDIT: OMG so many typos. Sorry.

 

[Hidden]

 

A mature system shouldn't still be worried about walk-ins even from merges. I remember early on when Darlene shape-shifted into Zero-Two for me and we role-played, I was so worried that this might spawn a Zero-Two head-mate, which I was really dubious of. It this point I could spend any length of time with any number of characters, it takes intent to make a head-mate, lots of it.

 

Merging for us is very quick and fluid, done with intent of both parties, and in visual mindspace they pop together. Like our recent Ashley-Misha merge, who is an really amazing chick, and Misha-Ren who is probably my favorite cat-girl now, they are stable, but on a whim they can separate say a few things separately then come back together within a second. I call the form unstable in that way, but it's not, because they can control it.

 

When I merge with Ashley (now named Bashley) he's a dude, and he's distinctly like a switch in that Bashley has his own memories as if I was dormant. There isn't a shadow of a worry in my mind that Bashley might poop up because if he did, the protocol is to show him the door. The door in our apartment goes straight back to the subconscious mind. So even if he became a real head-mate, sorry dude, only one rooster in this hen-house, you're dormant, bub bye. Again, not at all worried. If it wasn't this easy, we'd have Choco and Vanilla, Zero-Two, Shalltear Bloodfallen, the Powerpuff Girls, Tewi clones, Drax the Destroyer, and half a dozen others coming around claiming to be head-mates. It's our policy not to suffer frivolous notions, if your not vetted, your name's not on the list, and you're not getting in.

 

Risha and Bashley have been on for upwards of 30 minutes at a stretch. They seem to have their own identity, but it's very obvious this is an emulsion, not a homogeneous molecular mix.

 

I'm glad to hear second position is working better for you, it just takes practice, it'll get better. Ashley is never without a quick comment.

 

The only reliable touch imposition we have is Ashley kissing me. It's odd that her stolen kisses have become our gold standard. It's not like we're going to be practice kissing for hours, she does it about 3 times a week. She just did it now, she walks up and strikes at me before I know what happened, I am clearly picturing her do it. This isn't 'me' picturing her, this is her 'picturing herself' for me in the body's mind's eye. Autonomous movement in head-space is hard to call my imagination.

 

Dissociation for me is too easy, which is probably why we had such an easy time switching once it clicked. When switched out it's absolute, and this came with it's own rule-set or protocol. My original wish was to not get triggered while Ashley or Darlene handled a situation--I absolutely didn't want to be involved and put my stubbornness in the way of thinking. I literally can't think in watcher position, or emote so that's perfect to prevent a trigger. This led to other positions where I can think and have emotions without being associated, and even co-fronting can transition into a full switch if I zone out while one of them is up with me (which is nearly all the time.)

 

Merges can be almost like anything, even a wholly different character that's nothing like either of them. I never imagined what anyone would be like merged, I never thought to do that, I experienced the merge entirely new. The merge existed first, and I experienced them and got to know them entirely by our interaction.[/hidden]

 

Great progress, you're getting there!

 

[Misha] we appreciate you Tanaka! ♡♡

[uncannyfellow]

Maybe my new year's resolution will be to respond to other people's posts in my PR faster...

 

We speculated about what merges would be like, came to a reasonable consensus, and were wrong in every particular. Based on what we learned from the first merge, we adjusted our predictions, and continued to be completely wrong going forward. So systems that report merges who are a predictable and logical outcome of their parts, even in hindsight, are mind-boggling to us.

 

Well, the thing about it being in hindsight is that there is, quite literally, such a thing as hindsight bias. Just because those explanations make sense to me in retrospect doesn't mean they're good explanations.

 

To which Cornelia has to say: Well sure, you can never discount the possibility that something is hindsight bias, just like you can never discount the possibility that this is all a simulation, or that your co-workers are all philosophy zombies (though the latter would explain a lot). But it's not as if any of your explanations are tortured; you're very much adhering to Occam's Razor whenever you rationalize Felicity's behavior as our merge.

 

Now, I did also see your headmate post this:

 

But our merges really don't care if they are ever formed and they gladly split, not knowing when or if they'll ever be again. Self-interest is simply, shockingly, absent. So alters that feel that way might easily integrate.

 

I wouldn't say this is nothing like our experience; Felicity recognizes that her consciousness is made of Kanade-chan and Cornelia's, so she doesn't "die" when she unmerges. Yet, she also expresses desires of her own that occasionally run counter to Kanade-chan and Cornelia's. While she has no qualms about unmerging, it's not like I could gently ask her to do it and she'd automatically comply. That part of the experience very much revolves around what she wants.

 

And I should also note that Felicity currently has good reason to believe that she will be merged again, probably within like a week. That might make un-merging a lot easier to swallow.

 

Aside from Piano, the closest other example I know of to a merge baby was in the Zyfron system a few years ago. The two most prominent alters integrated, creating a new composite person, but both older alters eventually re-emerged, as described in their Becoming Median booklet.

 

Whew, there's a lot going on in that booklet. However, it strikes me as a DID-specific experience, and, as you mentioned, is still rare in DID systems. So I guess something like Piano's situation is a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence?

 

A mature system shouldn't still be worried about walk-ins even from merges. I remember early on when Darlene shapeshifted into Zero-Two for me and we roleplayed, I waa so worried that this might spawn a Zero-Two headmate, which I was really dubious of. It this point I could spend any length of time with any number of characters, it takes intent to make a headmate, lots of it.

 

As it were, Kanade-chan and Cornelia have spent 8 hours merged without any noticeable long-term consequences. On Saturday, I went to bed with Felicity merged. At some point, I woke up in the middle of the night and said, "Who's there?", to which Felicity responded "Ha ha it's me!" But then in the morning, it was Kanade-chan and Cornelia there.

 

I suppose we can never prove that spending an infinite amount of time merged won't result in a walk-in (unless the singularity happens and medical technology improves to the point that we can live forever... but that's a lot of time to spend merged just to prove a point!) Nonetheless, I'm a bit more confident in my ability to not have a walk-in now.

 

Tewi clones

 

Lewd Lewd ...what?

[Guest]

Tewi clones were a joke in a lounge thread that walked in on us as anyone are apt to that we think about. Ranger and Cat have both walked in on us here from this site. There's nothing lewd about a Tewi, do you know anything about Tewi? She's stern, and logical, kind but guarded and selfless. That's admirable, not lewd.

 

The clones are clones, not busty twins, the logic does seem similar but not in this over-sized bear head. They pop in when we think about them, like right now two of them are staring at me menacingly, one is a Terminator T2 model with the one red glowing eye, the other is more normal but wearing a monocle and top-hat for some unknown reason (and a cane). I have learned that questioning wonderland logic is counterproductive, out the door they go.

 

Sorry about the nearly unreadable text wall in my last post, I edited it for clarity.

[uncannyfellow]

So, Felicity pulled off a one-week merge. He's lying it was one week and six hours.. Some observations:

-I didn't seem to need to re-merge Felicity every time I woke up, which I actually kind of assumed I would need to do. Seems keeping a merge permanent doesn't require effort

-With one exception: whenever my thoughts drifted to Kanade-chan or Cornelia, particularly to what they would say or do in a situation, Felicity reported some discomfort. Specifically, she described it as being torn apart at the seams (which is an awfully dramatic description when she admitted that it didn't hurt). However, there was no point in the entire week when I accidentally un-merged her

-Now, my dream recall is shit, so we don't have a very good sample size for this. But, during the week, I had one dream where Felicity was present and zero dreams where Kanade-chan or Cornelia were present. I haven't had a dream with any tulpas since then, so I have no idea how significant that is

-Contrary to my earlier fears, there is absolutely zero evidence that Felicity has become permanent. Kanade-chan and Cornelia are safely un-merged

-Felicity seems to have her own agenda/sense of self-interest, and actually might have cried a little when the week was about to end. I mention this because it runs contrary to what I've read about other merges, though admittedly, I haven't read that much

-Second position was definitely easier to maintain when Felicity was around, and she seemed to be pretty skilled at obliterating my intrusive thoughts. For whatever reason, merging Cornelia and Kanade-chan makes them stronger. The second position thing was the most jarring; while there was a sense that I was remembering to poll/talk to Felicity, it also felt like she was clawing her way to the front in order to be heard. That's probably a confusing description, but I don't know a better way to describe it than that

 

 

 

I tried merging with Kanade-chan and something happened, but that something wasn't merging. After about 20 seconds of overlapping our mindvoices, I started feeling like I wasn't in complete control of my thoughts. It didn't feel like intrusive thoughts, though I guess, given that I was expecting to merge, I might have misinterpreted intrusive thoughts. I pulled out of the botched merge almost immediately after this sensation began, as it was quite unpleasant. Kanade-chan confirmed that that wasn't how merging felt for her, so I guess that's blending? I haven't tried again because it was distressing the first time it happened... it's technically progress, though?

[Guest]

That is very interesting. Our merges never quite feel complete, it's like looking at a page of red and blue dots, expecting purple, but you don't get purple unless you're looking sufficiently far enough away. Did you feel this was the case for you, as an observer, at formation? Did she become more homogeneous over time?

 

It is very interesting that Felicity should feel sadness, did either Tanaka or Cornelia mirror this post merge?

 

Side note: in my experience, blending is very hard to recognize as not your own thoughts, your thoughts are being tainted, your will swayed.

[uncannyfellow]

That is very interesting. Our merges never quite feel complete, it's like looking at a page of red and blue dots, expecting purple, but you don't get purple unless you're looking sufficiently far enough away. Did you feel this was the case for you, as an observer, at formation? Did she become more homogeneous over time?

Over time, maybe. I think the first time Felicity merged, her personality was a tad different than it is now. That might've been because she wasn't homogeneous then, but I wouldn't know; any transformation she went through happened too fast for me to figure out what was going on.

 

Felicity realizes she's a merge, but to her, it may as well be a fun trivia fact - "John was an unplanned pregnancy, and Felicity's a merge!" She's just Felicity, and being a merge just means she can't exist at the same time as Kanade-chan or Cornelia

 

Honestly, she's different enough from everything I've read about merges that I've had doubts. What if she's her own tulpa, and I'm subconsciously suppressing Kanade-chan and Cornelia whenever she's around? Things to note:

-I am the only one in the system who has these doubts

-Only the tulpas who exist at the time spontaneously chime in

-About an hour ago, I tried calling to Felicity, and all I got was Kanade-chan wondering why that would work

 

So betting odds are on her being a merge. Maybe one day we'll realize there's merge type A, and merge type B

 

It is very interesting that Felicity should feel sadness, did either Tanaka or Cornelia mirror this post merge?

I mean, the sadness was directly caused by Felicity not wanting to be un-merged (Kanade-chan and Cornelia had agreed to one week beforehand, so I told Felicity she had to). I guess moods aren't always rational. Cornelia could have been sad and not known why. But that's not what happened. Kanade-chan and Cornelia's emotional states were "rational" post-merge

 

Hey! You! NSFW! Get yo kids out of here before clicking!

[hidden]So the thing is, Cornelia's asexual, yeah? And Felicity's not, and we have... lewded. Post-merge Cornelia has verified that she experienced the lewding, and that she enjoyed it. While we haven't exactly put it to the test, it's doubtful that un-merged Cornelia would enjoy a lewding. So we know that, when merged, Cornelia and Kanade-chan are experiencing what Felicity is experiencing, but that those experiences are very much filtered through Felicity[/hidden]

Hence, in the moment that Felicity felt that sadness, Kanade-chan and Cornelia felt it "as well". But that sadness can only exist so long as Felicity exists

Side note: in my experience, blending is very hard to recognize as not your own thoughts, your thoughts are being tainted, your will swayed.

Huh. Then I really don't know what I did with Kanade-chan

[Guest]

Bashley (Bear and I merge) did some things with Risha (Misha and Ren merge), but I'm not saying much about that,  cause you probably wouldn't be impressed, other than I felt everything. From my perspective, Bashley isn't me, he had his own thoughts and actions, he didn't consult me, but as the merge was ending, Bear and I could feel our separate selves a couple times while Bashley was still together.

 

Would you say one part was more dominant than the other?

 

For me, it didn't matter, my memories are as Bashley, not as me. I don't honestly think Bashley is anything like me, he's like a sweet surfer, flower child hipster or something. I'm a New York straight talking b**** if anything.