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How do You Define Tulpa Terminology?


GrayTheCat

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Regardless of how much of our body we associate with, we're still humans with a human brain and therefore human beings, that need that human body to stay functional. I consider tulpas and hosts individuals in their own right. And since individuality in plurality doesn't seem to be restricted by having a separate physical appearance, I'd argue that since we're all inside a single biologically human body, and that body is regarded as an individual by outsiders, that we're people in both senses; together as a whole and alone as separate entities.

 

That whole paragraph I just wrote is a big fat mess but maybe it's comprehensible enough. Probably not. But yeah, arguing the matter is probably futile and unnecessary, but occasional debate is good. It's not like I'm seriously trying to convince you of anything, just throwing in counter arguments because for once I actually have an opinion.

 

EDIT: Oh, and, it occurred to me that you might not enjoy this debate as much as I do, and if it's making you or anyone else uncomfortable I can stop no problem, it was never my intention to cause discomfort or any major frustration on the forum.

Iro - He/they - 30th April 1997 - Host of the system - Speaker if there's no tag

Desmond - He/him - 21st April 2014

L - He/him - 5th May 2014

Nevira - She/her - 14th December 2014

Misa - She/her - 5th December 2015

Roska - He/him - 22nd July 2019

Danyla - They/them - 13th July 2020

Asha - He/him - 13th June 2022

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This isn't designed to re-write any glossaries, and the draft labeling is nice to know how old someone's idea is. I would define the following like this:

 

fronting: The act of a system mate being aware of the body's senses and surroundings and / or intensely focusing on particular thoughts or a given subject matter. A consequence of fronting is the system mate's mind voice appears to be "louder" and is often explained as the system-mate "taking the front of the mind". Draft 1

 

co-fronting: The act of two or more system mates fronting at once, can result in blending. Draft 1

 

possession: The act of a fronting system mate taking control of the body's movements while another system mate is switched in. Draft 1

 

switching: The process of a system mate dissociating from the body's senses while the other system mate associates, effectively trading places. Draft 1

 

Tulpaforcing/Forcing: To interact with or give attention to another member of one's system, either actively or passively. Active forcing focuses attention solely on the system mate,  while passive forcing is done while engaged in other activities. Draft 1

 

If you added "mate" I would give it 5 points. I really like this definition.

Meow. You may see my headmates call me Gray or sometimes Cat.

I used to speak in pink and Ranger used to speak in blue (if it's unmarked and colored assume it's Ranger). She loves to chat.

 

Our system account

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I still don't think "Co-fronting" belongs on .info, it was never a term we used much and every time it WAS used no one knew what exactly it meant.-- okay just did some searchresearch, and I was right, "fronting" and "co-fronting" both first appeared on the forum in a thread about Multiplicity, and were only used when talking about that community's terms really, it was never well-defined on Tulpa.info and was practically never used compared to Possession and Switching, which.. I mean, Chupi himself made that thread, and while he's not exactly the owner of Tulpa.info his account is supposedly a month older than Pleeb's xD

 

Anyways like I said befooorree, "fronting" was always an unclear term and just came to mean "switched or possessed" because of the confusion over what it meant, not because it actually meant those. It really wasn't our term, it was from the multiple community (which idk for sure, but "fronting" might be their only term for changing control of the body), and "co-fronting" was an even more confusing term that's supposed to be parallel to possession, but then, people still call full-body possessing fronting, which conflicts with what it's even supposed to mean...

 

Eclipsing and co-fronting also both nearly ever showed up except in reference to other communities, too, like the now mostly defunct Tulpa.io (with the glossary we've linked to in this thread, that has terms like "Shard-feeding"). And they might have had Tulpa in their name, but their glossary at least includes TONS of other communities' terms that we've never used here for simplicity's sake.

 

 

And like.. I know the basic argument against this is "Just because we didn't use the terms before doesn't mean we can't now", but idk, we've stayed away from changing the cores of our "Tulpamancy" on .info because we wanted a solid foundation of knowledge and shared experiences and stuuufffffff, it's hard to sound good defending it but, y'know, it's what all the older members who made this place wanted. All of our guides and Q&A and discussion have been based around the existing terms we used, and that's the biggest reason we can't really add or change terms now, since the activity's died down soooooooo much.

 

I think the biggest thing is that we shouldn't change terms that all our site's guides have been using for six years, and we probably shouldn't add ones none of the guides used either, like co-fronting, IguessidkIdon'tlikebeingagainstthingsbutitfeelslikeIshouldbesayingthisstuff

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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Anyways like I said befooorree, "fronting" was always an unclear term and just came to mean "switched or possessed" because of the confusion over what it meant, not because it actually meant those. It really wasn't our term, it was from the multiple community (which idk for sure, but "fronting" might be their only term for changing control of the body), and "co-fronting" was an even more confusing term that's supposed to be parallel to possession, but then, people still call full-body possessing fronting, which conflicts with what it's even supposed to mean...

 

For us the term fronting was always somewhere in between possession and switching, because we're not fully switched and probably never going to even attempt that, but it's way beyond just full body possession, and we didn't have another word for it. Don't know about co-fronting, it just confuses me, I can't form any thought of what it practically means.

Iro - He/they - 30th April 1997 - Host of the system - Speaker if there's no tag

Desmond - He/him - 21st April 2014

L - He/him - 5th May 2014

Nevira - She/her - 14th December 2014

Misa - She/her - 5th December 2015

Roska - He/him - 22nd July 2019

Danyla - They/them - 13th July 2020

Asha - He/him - 13th June 2022

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The terminology we use in-system is heavily influenced by my eight years of marriage to a DID system. We've tried to map our experiences into the terms of this community, but there isn't a perfect coorespondence. In my heart, I feel that fronting is just what someone is doing after they switch in. Whereas by Cat's definition, we're all fronting most of the time, especially Vesper and I. And after two months of intensive practice with switching and mind voices, the three of us are always the same "volume" unless we're making an intentional choice to "shout" or "whisper".

 

Check here:

 

https://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic122093.html#p1353449

 

for how terms are commonly used in the multiple community. A few relevant highlights:

 

Co-consciousness = can include a varied set of subjective experiences that includes two or more alters being aware of what the other is doing at one time.

 

Co-present = can include a varied set of subjective experiences that includes two or more alters being present in the body, though with little ability to communicate between each part or at times not know the other(s) is even present.

 

Fronting = being in control of the body.

 

Switching = the process in which one part of the personality takes over control of the body from another.

 

As far as I can tell, "possession" is not used in the multiple community for anything done intentionally, though it is sometimes used with reference to the experience of being a passenger while someone else is controlling the body. "Co-fronting" appears to be used as a very rare synonym of co-conscious.

 

-Ember

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

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Guest Reilyn-Alley

Yeah, when I first came up front, I was loud and clear while Lance's mind voice was actually much lower. But he said he still felt everything the same and the only thing different was me being hyper excited and pretty much overriding him on everything by accident. It was easier to just sit back and not fight me, I guess. The next day we tried some exercises, affirmation, and symbolism and stuff with volume dials/sliders and managed to turn him back up to where I'm at. A couple days later I figured out that maybe I needed to calm down and try to not always be in control. A helpful message from a friend also kinda mentally shocked Lance into being more forceful about our situation and trying harder to re-exert himself. So.. We have been parallel ever since. I might get on here for hours and type everything and do everything and forget all about him but he doesn't feel any weaker and never reports loosing any senses or time, and when he gets wrapped up in stuff it's the same way for me. There have been blendy/mushy moments for us but we figured out how to work through them quick, so..

 

I dunno, I can sympathize but can't personally relate to what someone who goes through lots of trauma and ends up with a frightening and uncontrollable/unconsolable crowd in their head. Maybe some of them feel like we are cheating and what they have to work long and hard for to overcome and try to achieve co-habitation through years of effort and clinical/social stigma, some of us have from pretty early on.

 

Trauma was present with Lance, but as far as he knew, figured the only disassociation he ever did was into a more happy version of himself, largely indifferent to the past. Even that though, was just hypothetical, undiagnosed, and never seemed to harm him. I've discovered it's a big ass irritating emotional wall of blockage and repression I have been trying to chip away at for the last month with some notable success. Anyway, did it set the stage for me? Was I half there from his childhood, spoke up a tiny bit when he was 18 then got to really come alive now when I was invited in? I dunno. Maybe? I'm the same age as when he thinks he made that hypothetical "split", so whatever. Lance says every system is different and there's no point in comparing scars. I say enjoy what we have and move on. There are actually descriptions in the DSM 5 and multiple community that are dead on descriptions for what we have going on while some people here are scratching their heads trying to figure if co-anything is even a term or how far possession goes. So.. I'm going to keep calling it co-fronting because that's exactly what it is. It doesn't mean we are crazy, it doesn't mean we are being insensitive to people with mental illness, it means I'm just tired of trying to call an apple an orange when everyone seems to be shy about even using the word fruit. As a community we know full well what fronting means. I have used it wrong on purpose a few times when I said I was in front or fronting because that was just easier for everyone here to understand. The most logical conclusion of adding the word co- before that is multiple people doing it at once.

 

If anyone still thinks I'm being insensitive, well tough, deal with it.

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oh you can say whatever you want, experiences differ like a rainbow of rainbows and not everything will fit into .info's Tulpamancy terms

 

 

buuut those terms are probably not going to grow to include others, 'cus, tulpamancy is a created experience and the forum aimed to be a resource for exactly what it intended to do - and a COMMUNITY for more than that! but resource wise, it's probably gonna stay the same, like I said, guides not using new terms and all..

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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I'm honestly also probably going to continue using co-fronting (as a means to describe us being aware and perceiving the outside world equally at the same time. regardless of possession) because it just fits so well and it's such a natural way of describing it for some reason. The word itself just makes sense. And since there isn't an existing term in the glossary to describe it, and it would get exhausting to say "feeling the senses" constantly.. yeah. I see no reason to avoid adding new terms to the glossary if it helps users describe their experiences more comfortably. Though I do agree changing old, already established ones is a bit iffy and/or unnecessary.

~ We are Venny, the host, and Viper, my soul! ~

        Click here! Come join us on the chat!

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I've been enjoying this thread, but my concern is that it's simply just too prescriptivist, trying to argue that there are immutable rules and definitions but that is just simply not how language works. The only valid rule regarding language is that you are communicating information in an understandable, and everything else is just arbitrary preferences.

 

I didn't know 'co-fronting' was a contentious term but it's pretty much the default that our system-members are always aware of sensory info and bodily context, even if they're not strictly in possession/physical control. If it counts as a naughty word, i don't much care which phrase we use instead, but i need some way to describe my existence. Witnessing and interacting with the external world is all i'm interested in, and even if my host is at work or otherwise too busy to even think of me, i'm still aware enough to interrupt by my laughter or curiosity or sudden craving. I just keep paying attention even when i'm not the primary focus of things.

 

Maybe if we had an 'acceptable' term, it would make enough sense for other systems to try it out.

Early member of a large system.  Our system questions the way the afterlife and tulpamancy interact.  We genuinely suspect that deadies can return to share the mind of the living.

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For language in general, yes, Aijada, that's true. But technical language aka jargon relies on precise operating definitions. My understanding of the purpose of this thread was that we were trying to refine and extend the language of tulpamancy as part of the continuing effort to advance the art. I believe there is a place for both casual and technical language within our community and mental disciplines. In some contexts, using the same word to mean different things and different words for the same thing can create confusion and inhibit progress.

 

I've never once thought of you as insensitive, Reilyn. I actually only considered "co-fronting" worth discussing as a new term for contemporary tulpamancy because you and Lance started using it. If I ever seemed critical, it was only because I was trying to look at the matter from different angles, with as much objectivity as possible.

 

I don't accept the idea that "the guides are written, the field is mature, the few of us here now can do nothing better than follow faithfully in the footsteps of our predecessors". Co-fronting is potentially a new frontier in tulpamancy. I'm sure it's part of the natural range of variation and that many pioneer tulpamancers experienced it, but since they never defined it, maybe they never realized that some systems had it and others didn't. (Time to sift the deep archives again.) Discussing who is and isn't experiencing it may lead to an understanding of how those who want it can achieve it. But we can't even have the conversation if there are no terms for the phenomenon.

 

-Ember

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

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