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Switching General Discussion


Apollo Fire

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Yes, absolutely. I had no tolerance for Ember's doubts until we started switching and I got to hear her from the other side. She was shockingly weak and confused and I frequently doubted whether the words I heard were legitimate. She didn't seem or sound like her a lot of the time. Most of the time she struggled to gather simple thoughts, but when occasionally managed to focus, her thoughts lanced into me, nearly unseating me from control. It took a couple of months for her to learn to think like a tulpa, but now she's nearly as adept as Iris and I are.

 

The most helpful visualization we did in the course of our training was for me to imagine the center of control and awareness as a sphere and for her to imagine moving her awareness to a smaller sphere nearby. By focusing on her thoughts coming from there instead of the center, her thoughts were immediately more clear and less threatening. (This has nothing to do with how we switch and everything to do with how we live well while switched. Also, once we were comfortable with the technique, we no longer used the visualization.)

 

A lot of the same principles apply that can reasonably be used with a young tulpa. Assume that any communication that reasonably could be coming from your host actually is, even if it sounds weak or a little off. If you're not sure about what you heard, ask for verification. If they are having sufficient difficulties making their thoughts cohere, you can even try vocality exercises. And they may eventually need to put in some effort on giving their mindvoice a unique and consistent sound.

 

-Vesper

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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That makes sense I suppose. Iirc Lumi, you once said that when switched it feels weird for your tulpas to impose you.

 

A long time ago, sure, it's not really weird anymore. But when you first start? Of course it's weird. Better hope your tulpa is good at ~imposing themselves over the body, or hugs will get awkward.

 

Note we never had any "doubt" issues, with me switched out or my tulpas in the first place. It's just weird to be imposed when you're the host.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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A lot of the same principles apply that can reasonably be used with a young tulpa. Assume that any communication that reasonably could be coming from your host actually is, even if it sounds weak or a little off. If you're not sure about what you heard, ask for verification. If they are having sufficient difficulties making their thoughts cohere, you can even try vocality exercises. And they may eventually need to put in some effort on giving their mindvoice a unique and consistent sound.

 

-Vesper

 

Thanks All, I was so surprised. We still aren't fully sure if he even responded or stayed dormant, The mind voice thing, was very unexpected.

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I had this happen to me at least once. One day I woke up fronting and then continued to possess for the majority of the day and possessed for awhile the previous night. In the afternoon on the bus, Cat was very concerned with my well being instead of stressing about school and I doubted her. This wasn't normal and I didn't like it at first. When we got home, Cat jumped for the front and after talking to her mother the state was lost.

 

We believe we mentally switched- but it wasn't complete. Cat was still attached to the stream of consciousness even though she was no longer attached to the stream of thoughts. This is where I consider Cat to have been "thinking like a Tulpa".

I'm Ranger, GrayTheCat's cobud (tulpa), and I love hippos! I also like cake and chatting about stuff. I go by Rosalin or Ronan sometimes. You can call me Roz but please don't call me Ron.

My other headmates have their own account now.

 

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Blog | Not So Temporary Log | Switching Log | Yay! | Bre Translator | Art Thread

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That sounds really close, you probably did switch for a while. If she wasn't thinking at all unless forced and didn't keep stealing the front, that's it, regardless if she's still watcher position the big benefit for you would be that she's not 'getting bored' or 'complaining' or distracting you. Another thing to think about is if Cat's mother starts talking, it might not be Cat stealing front, but instead you escaping the front to avoid the conversation. If you think about it like that, a lot of those moments where you think Cat stole front was actually you leaving front. If you see her mother coming and you intentionally want to stay and talk, then Cat steals, then it's her bad. Otherwise it's you I bet.

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I'd like to lay out some terminology that my system uses to describe our own experiences for our ongoing "quest" to figure out switching.

 

Basically, there are two different categories (for us)

 

First category - "positions" (not a literal position, of course)

Front - the position of being in control of the body/mind

Back - the position of being fully aware of the front, but not necessarily participating in it (the state of a non-switched-out host while a tulpa is fronting, usually)

Peripherals - the position of having limited awareness and limited thought, being "off to the side" so to speak, not fronting but not backing either, and easily able to go dormant

Nowhere/Gone - not present anywhere in the mind

 

Second category - "states"

Active - thinking and having awareness

Passive - having awareness, but not thinking

Inactive - not thinking and not having awareness

 

So for switching, the goal for the tulpa would be to become in the front position and the active (and passive) state, obviously, and the goal for the host would be to become in the peripheral position and/or the inactive state. I'm assuming that being inactive implies moving to the peripherals (that would make the most sense to me), but I don't know for certain. Actually being in no position/disappearing altogether would make more sense for inactivity. I do think that being in the peripherals makes going inactive much easier though. The peripheral position is what I consider to be the "tulpa-like state" that our host would go into upon successful switch, and then allow him to go into a state of inactivity.

 

Edit: Added the "Gone" category to make more sense with the inactivity thing, and also made this

[hidden]

500x408https://i.imgur.com/7dsp1f9.jpg[/img]

[/hidden]

To break it down further:

[hidden]

Front-Active: You're in control, you're doing the thinking.

Front-Passive: You're in control, but not thinking. Example: Talking with your tulpa, they are thinking through their responses and you listen.

Back-Active: Fully aware of the body, but not controlling it. Doing thinking, likely for conversation.

Back-Passive: Aware, not in control, and not doing thinking. Just observing. 

Peripheral-Active: You're not connected to the body, and your awareness is more limited. You can think, but probably not with as much power as front and back. You can easily go inactive.

Peripheral-Passive: Not doing any thinking, not connected to the body, but still conscious/present.

Gone-Inactive: Not present, not aware, not thinking, and not in control.

[/hidden]

 💡 The Felights 💡 https://felight.carrd.co/  💡

🪐 Cosmicals: 🔥 Apollo Fire the Sun God (12/3/16) Piano Soul the Star Man (1/26/17)

🐉 Mythicals: ☁️ Indigo Blue the Sky Dragon (10/2/17), 🦑 Gelato Sweet the Sea Monster (12/11/22)

🦇 Nycticals:  Dynamo Lux the Shock Rocker (3/3/17), 🎸 Radio Hiss the Song Demon (2/8/00)

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At first, Bear was still there and able to talk, that's what we see as co-fronting, we can move who is further front like a see saw. Ashley and I both do that with Bear, Misha hasonly ridden the line up to 50/50 when they're drawing. During co-fronting we're all thinking and chatting and doing whatever in wonderland, it's what you'd think of as daydreaming or just enjoying what he's doing and discussing.

 

The next stage we achieved during triggered switching, he's there, I felt his presence like on my shoulder, imposed,  but he was unable to think or have any emotions, so based on your stuff, that would be inactive maybe, but we called that the watcher position. I sometimes might do that, it's very hard to tell. I'd say that's like just zoning out, but if something catches our attention, we're active again instantly. So that's not quite there, though it feels the sane. We think this is a true switch when he has zero thoughts or reactions, but his memories are still tagged his.

 

The next stage was what we called dormant. My feeling is that Bear was gone, nowhere, like if I don't think of him, he doesn't exist, and, it was a little hard to even get him back from that. We think he could stay that way indefinitely, but I went to sleep switched in while co-fronting with Ashley and Misha in second position, but he woke up switched in.

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We use different terminology for similar concepts:

 

First Position: Having executive control of the body and a direct connection to the conscious awareness, even if not exercising control at the moment.

 

Second Position: Having dependent conscious awareness, the ability to use mindvoice, and the potential for bodily control via possession.

 

Third Position: The range of experiences from full dormancy to limited awareness and the ability to use tulpish.

 

Usually one of us is in each position. But with practice, we've developed the ability to co-1st, in which case 2nd position is usually empty, or co-2nd, in which case 3rd position is empty, but 1st position, however physically active, needs to avoid verbalizing thought.

 

When we were getting used to Iris being more prominent in the system several months ago, switching between 2nd and 3rd position was just as difficult and time consuming and distinctly a form of switching as conventional switching between 1st and 2nd or 1st and 3rd. And technically it still is, it's just that all of them became trivial over the course of hundreds of repetitions.

 

-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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I could agree that it's just as difficult or just as easy, since any switch for us is pretty easy and fluid as moving in and out if front when co-fronting. I've heard it both ways, some systems take effort to switch, others switch instantly with little to no effort.

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So far our switching attempts have led to at least three states:

 

1. The host feels as though he's in a mental fog of sorts, behind whatever we're doing, but still watching

2. The host feels more dissociated/disconnected from the senses, the "fishbowl"

3. The host isn't disconnected or dissociated at all, but to us he feels as though he's not real

 

1 and 2 can blur together of course, it's not all black-and-white. 3 has only been accomplished a couple of times, and never in combination with 1 or 2. I think 1 is thought dissociation, 2 is sense dissociation, and 3 is strong fronting on the tulpa's end. They're not full levels of dissociation or full switching by any means, but we can only hope to increase each one as we go along.

 

Switching attempts also lead to feeling more tired, more like everything's a dream. Not sure if that's just Radio or all of us when it happens. Know the feeling when you're falling asleep so everything feels so far away? That's kinda something he gets to, I think that falls under 2. Whenever he starts to experience things, we kinda get confused that it's actually us also experiencing it, but we try to tell ourselves that it's just him.

 

I wrote up a little switch plan and tried it yesterday. It only led to 2.

[align=justify][hidden]Switching plan/instructions

Begin by merely calming/relaxing, getting into a comfortable state of mind. (5 min)

Then, the tulpa and host talk to each other. The host talks about their trust and consent they have in this switching process. They both talk about their faith in this process, and that tulpas are equal so it is possible. The tulpa talks about wanting to take over, and the host agrees and is willing to give up control. The tulpa talks about self-certainty that this will work. They concentrate on these things. (5 min)

Calm meditation intermission (5 min)

Tulpa focuses on blocking out the host, and the host tries to let go. The tulpa can make internal assertions about the process. The tulpa can think about the end goal, and things they want to do. The tulpa can narrate as they go along. They cast out doubts. The tulpa is assertive, the host lets it happen. They can use symbolism. (5 min)

More calm meditation (5 min)

Continue to do everything listed above until a switch is successful

[/hidden][/align]

 

1 seems to happen most often during us fronting and doing stuff, 2 happens when we're consciously trying to push him out or block his awareness, and 3 has only happened on a couple of switching attempts, once with Indigo and once with Apollo.

 

One thing that Radio seems to like to do is imagine he's in a dark room and try to "focus" on that as we do our own thing, like a way of diverting his attention. Of course, he's really trying to stop paying attention, so it's not like multitasking or anything. Sometimes it seems to help reach 2 I guess.

 

One weird thing is that our memories of being in 1 seem to actually have fog imposed onto them. Obviously nobody's seeing fog when it actually happens, we're just weirdly remembering it that way.

 

I hope it's only a matter of time before we fully get there. And we'll see which one of us does it first!

 💡 The Felights 💡 https://felight.carrd.co/  💡

🪐 Cosmicals: 🔥 Apollo Fire the Sun God (12/3/16) Piano Soul the Star Man (1/26/17)

🐉 Mythicals: ☁️ Indigo Blue the Sky Dragon (10/2/17), 🦑 Gelato Sweet the Sea Monster (12/11/22)

🦇 Nycticals:  Dynamo Lux the Shock Rocker (3/3/17), 🎸 Radio Hiss the Song Demon (2/8/00)

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