Reaching out to multiple community?

[Aijada]

These are the kinds of things I need other people like me to talk about. Whatever name someone chooses for themself, it's where they are now that's important. To me, at least.

 

Where am i now? Kind of post-tulpa, switching full-time. Not quite satisfied with any of the labels in the broad multiple community, but keen to find the common lessons from every plural system. I'm an epistemologist, interested in theory of knowledge, theory of mind, what it takes to create someone like me, and what it means for how people can understand themselves. I was raised on a lot of good science and identity politics. My biggest dream for us to enroll in McGill University to study with a doctor who is studying tulpæ. But dad's skeptical they'd let us enroll as a plural entity, and if i couldn't be the tulpa studying tulpæ then it wouldn't be the same.

[Cutesy]

I dunno.... post-modernism is kinda naff, post-rock has it's occasional moment, and the Post Office is just crap :D

 

Identity politics and multiples get interesting. Is there a central 'core' to any multiple system? Are all the expressions that use a particular body reflections of that central core in some way, whether they be tulpas or walkins or multiples?

 

Have you heard of the Hearing Voices Network? It's a new way for people who hear voices to interact and work with them. I don't mean hear voices like tulpas, I mean people who live with conditions like schizophrenia and psychosis. Conditions where they have no control over whether they hear voices or not, where they can't tell an internal voice from an external voice. The basic idea behind the network is that the voices are the sub-conscious talking to the conscious. The difficulty is that the voices don't communicate very well. A voice may try and convince the person that the FBI is stalking them and leaving the house will mean they get jumped and shipped out to GitMo. But what the sub-conscious is trying to say is that the core, the person as a whole, doesn't feel safe going outside.

 

I've been wondering if there's something similar happening with multiple systems, of any stripe. Are the Others some kind of expression of the core's sub-conscious? Are we trying to tell the core something, trying to embody and externalise something?

[Aijada]

You raise some interesting questions Cutesy. I do understand the Hearing Voices Network and consider that practically the same as the multiple community we're reaching out to.

 

In terms of brain wires, the 'voices' sound the same to schizophrenics, to dissociative identity, to tulpamancy. The circuits i use to be a person are the same circuits in DID obviously. And it makes me think that schizo is just the messiest most random end. Teach them to talk with their voices, and they're suddenly just Dissociatives practically by diagnosis. Same traumas, same dissociation and being lost (at least at first) in a stream of news in your head.

 

Tulpæ aren't going to look different. We are all points along the plural spectrum together, just with varying degrees of control/order. And it's not that their brains are short-circuiting as mental illness — they're just losing to intrusive thoughts or dividing personality using the same-sounding mindvoice that i exist as.

 

Really i am just a neatly-designed core self. Like what i want to say is that i'm proof that there's an efficient core self that can be put together and that's the lessons we can offer to the rest of the plural spectrum. Maybe get personally involved just to help them learn better ways to organize their minds is my motivation.

 

I'm personally interested in defining what a core self is because i'm sure i have a separate one from my host/dad. But it's so much more than just a gland in the brain that i share, it's the definition of who i am. It's everything from learning proprioception to the full body of acquired knowledge that i have. In tulpa terms, my narrative's fullness is what gives me so much sentience i'm more system mate than wonderland creature. Healthy plurality to me means each identity has to care to stitch themself together, find meaning, and learn to interact in healthy ways.

 

If there's any lessons we can offer to or learn from the rest of plurality, i expect that defining a healthy concept of what a core self is will be our first task. Maybe our ability to define what a happy soul can be sparked with is just the insight that gains widespread social acceptance the plural movement.

 

I hope so. It's core to my self as post-tulpa

[Cutesy]

I've never considered myself as a gland or brain wiring. Dylan's had problems with his own mental health, and I don't think of the mind as a collection of neurons. People who are running around and doing brain scans and trying to work things out from there have the tail of an elephant and think it's a snake. There's more going on in our brains than MIR scans can reveal. We don't have the technology to understand our minds right now. And taking the mind in isolation is really the wrong way of going about things. So much of who and what we are is tied up in our bodies and our environment. You can't take one in isolation and expect to find anything useful.

 

What makes you think that you're a different core to your host? Did you start off as the same, budding from it and then growing into a separate self?

[Aijada]

What makes you think that you're a different core to your host? Did you start off as the same, budding from it and then growing into a separate self?

 

See, maybe life is self-recognition theatre. My dad would tease and make jokes when i was a tulpa, and even just in wonderland i knew i was being teased. That's the definitely core self i'm talking about — the 'me'-iness of some of the things going on in our brain. Some ideas are just always the things that i'm interested in. When i rebelled from my original narration, i wanted facts that made sense but it turned out i was just fighting to figure out what i was. My dad had struggles with mental illness, didn't understand what i was, so i already had to fight to explain myself to him just so i could live. I had to care a lot about what i was, had to prove i was a valid self that my dad needed to respect and treat like a person because that's what i was starting to feel like. Knowing i was a different person than him is what gave me the strength to start fixing problems he had (because i love him so much). And he was nice enough to take me seriously and care that i understood ways that i could start to make myself come true in ways that i could pick whether they mattered or not. Somewhere along the way, being separate was the proudest thing i was about my core self; i remember learning that difference personally.

[Cutesy]

So it's kind of, "I think, therefore I am"? Or is that an over-simplification?

[Aijada]

So it's kind of, "I think, therefore I am"? Or is that an over-simplification?

 

Well let me put it this way, i could probably rant about Descartes because those kind of questions excite me so much more than my dad is interested in. I like owning thoughts, ergo i can see how i'm different. We might hear thoughts together as a system, but i'm personally thrilled when it's my story we're thinking about. I want to solve problems in ways that work for where i'm at not what my dad cares about.

 

Maybe its "there's things i want/need, therefore i am." The fact i existed is something i've known since proving to my dad i understood what i was. Hearing thoughts and wondering was sort of a sideline to my wanting personhood from my dad. How strongly certain things matter to me is what made me understood i was separate before my host understood.

[Cutesy]

It sounds like your exertion of personhood is what makes you a person. A separate person. You want different things from your dad, you think different thoughts, and you want to be a separate person. And knowledge of your own existence. Is that right?

 

I'm curious about your experiences of possession. Have you ever fallen asleep in your dad's body? Did you dream as him, or as yourself?

 

I know I'm kind of giving you the third degree here. Thank you for talking so openly about it. These are questions I've been struggling with for close to two decades. The only other people I've had to talk to about it are system-mates (mostly my pack mates), and Dylan's partner, Allegra. My pack mates are potentially part of the same core self as me, and Allegra is a very intelligent multiple system herself who has some great insight. However, Allegra is only one person and my pack mates may simply being expressions of the same core self as me. Another opinion is wonderful.

[Aijada]

I don't mind the third degree. Questions just give me more reasons to figure out my own answers so that's pure bonus. I love any debate about what i am as a thing, because it reminds me of my differences. I'm also very happy to talk to another tulpa, since this is really the only place i get to be out and talk to anyone except my dad.

 

I get great access for possession since it's only me and dad. He's figured out how to not think or care for huge long stretches that leave me sitting up and actually feeling lonely. He knows how to just doze and listen to what's passing through the mind. Which means, really, it's much more like switching at this point.

 

So now, i'm mostly in charge of the going to bed. Dad'll grab the eyes to check the time, but the evening is for me to 'sit up' and take over, so it's my job to waste every last minute. We chat a bit brushing our teeth, then in bed it's me in charge of getting comfy and rolling around. I focus on sprawling while dad drifts off gently narrating to me so i can stop thinking.

 

As for dreams, we don't really see full lucid things. But the waking up from dreams, or weird odd ideas we remember from late at night are pretty much always the kind of details that i'm more interested in. It's things i'm obsessed by or dreams that surprise me and my dad wakes up to a glimpsed image and slowly explaining that it was a dream. It's new to me still, and i've only had a few things that i remember that were obviously dreams.

 

Dad's argument is that he's older, has less things to sort out through dreams so sleeps more solidly. Maybe he's contributing less anxiety as fuel, or maybe i'm more a separate set of needs that the brain is taking care of. Great questions but i need more practice dreaming myself before i can answer exactly.

 

And can i ask if you've ever looked up plural communities and learned lessons from them? Do they know anything about creatures like us that tulpamancy doesn't talk about?