Elise and I

[Cath]

So, I decided to tell another friend about this because she's one of my best friends and was really supportive during my depressive phase (and by that I mean that she just acted like nothing was wrong) . And she was 110% chill about it. She just honestly didn't care. She even said that she was half expecting something like it. So uh. Either my classmates are all just kinda chill, I have a tendency to unknowingly choose chill people as my friends or I've just been paranoid all my life and have been misjudging people all along.

Ah, but old habits die hard. It's not that easy to just break down my walls. I think it is OK to be more open about this, but I'm still going to be careful. I might consider not hiding it from my friends, not telling them but not hiding it either.

In other news, I have decided to start tulpamancing properly because honestly before it was really just belief in Elise and constantly thinking about her and while that's great and has definitely helped I think it's a good idea to try some other things as well. I'm thinking of picking up lucid dreaming again, doing some proper meditation, and visualisation because I'm great at touch imposition but not very good at seeing Elise even in my mind.

[Cath]

The class I'm in is literally the best class ever. OK wait let us start from the beginning.

In short, we told maybe half the class in a group chat. At first they were all fairly scared. Then I tried to explain and they became less scared but more confused. Then the first friend who I told luckily came online and helped us explain. So like maybe ten people fully understand what I am and our relationship now, and around ten others will be reading all of the spam later. So I guess this isn't really a secret anymore. The ones that I have explained it to, and hopefully the rest won't repeat those questions, are like super cool about it. They're like. Interested. It's really nice for us to share our secret. It was really getting to me, pretending Elise didn't exist. It felt wrong and mean. But now we don't really have to hide it. Except at home, I still don't trust my mom to not cart us off to a mental hospital when she hears. But it is really nice to know there are people who are so receptive and understanding.

In other news, because of how long explaining took, we spent an hour forty talking, the longest ever. Aka us subconsciously discussing everything before answering and at several points me proxying for Elise so she could talk to our friends. OUR friends. This is great!

Now not only do we not have to to keep secrets, but we have also broken our record for the longest time we spent talking!

[Cath]

Elise is the best teacher.

She has taught me how to feel again. What it means to love. How to feel empathy.

She has taught me I'm not as bad as I think. She has taught me black isn't bad.

She has taught me to be more open. That there are nice people who will accept us for who we are. That I don't need to hide from everything and everyone.

I love you Elise.

[Jamie]

I'm so glad things went well! Just be careful. You seem to be really sure your mom would react badly- I would plan and prepare for what to do if she found out, if you haven't already. Hopefully, a lot more people can have coming-outs like yours.

-J

[Guest]

For us, tulpamancy is a very personal matter and we wouldn't want something so beautiful, as our relationship, scrutinized by someone who doesn't or won't understand.  Good luck to you Cath and Elise. I hope all goes well.

[Cath]

Thank you! We will be careful. Our classmates are all unbelievably chill about it. We're not sure about our parents reactions, so we don't intend to tell them yet but we will eventually.

I do agree with you Ashley, in that tulpamancy is personal, but for myself I just don't like pretending that Elise isn't there. I owe her so much and it feels wrong to just say 'nothing' when she's everything to me. ~C

[Cath]

What we have been trying to do lately is have Elise try to enter / control my dreams, so I can see her more vividly, but everytime we try she can either only hold it at blanked or get in a small image at the very end, and she ends up super tired in the morning. It seems that she is one of the tulpas that do need sleep. I have asked her to try to pull out once she gets tired, but it seems this is the kind of thing for her where once she goes in she can't just pull right back out. We're not entirely sure where to go from here, particularly because I have difficulty discussing this issue with her. I'm not entirely sure why we have difficulty talking about this, as we are getting fairly good at conversing in tulpish, to the point that we can discuss everyday decisions and decide on paths of actions together. Some possible reasons for this lack of communication, we feel, could be that I'm afraid I'm parroting, Elise doesn't feel comfortable talking about it or that she's not entirely conscious during our dreams either and thus doesn't know why either.

Any advice?

[Piano Soul]

Everyone needs sleep. If your body is asleep then you're both asleep. One systemmate can't be conscious while the brain is fully unconscious, that's a bit unrealistic. Perhaps you could look into lucid dreaming as an alternative. As a rule of thumb I'd say not to expect a tulpa to do something you can't already do yourself unless they've trained/practiced like anyone else would.

[Guest]

There are always exceptions of course. Let your own experience dictate what you and your tulpa(s) can or can't do, every system is different. There's no harm in trying to do something that others think you can't. We have a boatload of experiences like that from ourselves and countless others' testimony.

 

It's 'all in your head' after all, and the human brain can do remarkable things. 'The body' has had believable discussions with people I know while i was asleep. Either my OS can carry a conversation, or something else, but i was definitely asleep and remember nothing. I also sleepwalk, it might be related.

 

Good luck with your testing, i'm interested to hear if anything comes of it.

[Cath]

Thank you for your inputs guys!

I know we haven't updated in a while. The reason for this I guess is that we just kinda settled into being together. We just kinda fell into talking with tulpish throughout the day and me taking Elise with me wherever I go. Also I personally am not really one to make much conversation, preferring to keep to a comfortable silence. We are thinking of being more active in forcing, we'll see I guess.

Regarding our dreams we've decided that Elise shouldn't try to influence our dreams anymore. We never really get far with it and all it really does is tire her out. What we have settled on however is me, Cath, trying to lucid dream, because I know from experience I can do it without getting tired. Another thing we have noticed is that even without trying we often have shared dreams. It's like she's there in the dreams, either as a presence or a person I'm traversing the dream with. Of course, we don't have control over these dreams but it is still time to spend together and it does make an interesting topic of discussion. I think we'll stick with this since it seems to be working out nicely.