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Apollo Fire

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In what contexts are you working to be you outside of playing Smash and posting on the forum? I know Cat is on the forum some; does she also play Smash? Doing just what your host does isn't going to help you feel more like yourself. I can't imagine how Reisen, Tewi, Flandre, and Lucilyn are okay with it, but those of us who feel threatened by it should definitely not live like our hosts.

 

Actually, Smash is not Cat's favorite game. She would rather play Super Mario Odyssey or Breath of The Wild. However, Smash is a game Cat is okay with playing, hence why I can play it at all. If the activity I want to try is too abnormal from Cat's interests, she won't want to sit around and watch me do it, so she is more likely to front steal, willingly or not.

 

So all of the things I do are things Cat is either okay with doing or likes doing, but I avoid doing activities Cat loves doing (unless it's coding, but only because coding is useful). Being on the forums is something I like to do, Cat... not so much. She doesn't mind the forums though, and every so often she'll post here and there.

 

Right now I'm wondering if art is something I'm interested in, and I'm also working on the new version of Breaking Point. Even though Cat and I worked on the old version together, I feel safe to say the new version is 90-95% me. Obviously, Cat is interested in art and creative story telling...

 

I feel like what I can do is limited, and I was hoping switching will allow for me to explore who I am without having to worry about Cat's disapproval. Apparently, not so. Cat doesn't like sitting around and spending large amounts of time in wonderland, and I don't think it's worth it to have an active wonderland life. It wouldn't accomplish much... I would be surrounded in a pool of Cat's creativity. I don't want to live a life where I'm Cat's clone nor a life in Cat's imagined world, I just want a life I can call my own.

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.

 

If I missed seeing your art, please PM/DM me!

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

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Vesper: Your situation is so radically different from mine that I've had a hard time wrapping my mind around it all year. But I think it might finally be sinking in a little, so I have a couple of ideas.

 

I assume that Cat has been saying that she supports your efforts to switch in and is fine with going dormant if you do. I also assume that she is aware that if she did, you would be making your own choices that she might oppose if she was there. Switching is a team sport, especially when learning, so this is important.

 

If Cat wants to support you but is unable to prevent herself from interfering with you, then you need to change the balance of power.

 

First, Cat needs to become more compliant. Try exercises where you aren't fronting but she has to do exactly what you say and nothing else. Use her own will to train both her and the body to not let her preferences automatically override yours. This eventually includes her instantly and automatically doing things she absolutely hates, just because you told her to. These exercises can stop as soon as you can hold the front on your own.

 

(Ember: Just make sure you still like one another at the end of the day.)

 

Vesper: Second, you need to become stronger. If lots and lots of passive resistance to her passive interference isn't making you stronger, take a page from tulpa001's playbook and raise the difficulty level. Wrestle with her mentally. Fight for control. Strive with every fibre of your being to make the body do exactly what you want. For this, the tasks should usually be simple, so you can focus your will without having to think very much.

 

That could be a long hard struggle. But you don't have to become strong enough to defeat her when she's fighting you. You only have to become strong enough to defeat her when she's cooperating. Ember only rarely beats me in our mental wrestling. But, in part because of the struggle, she's become much stronger than she was.

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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When I control the body, the main reason I lose the front is because Cat's thoughts overpower mine. I susceptible when I am relaxed and not focusing on myself, and the thoughts that flood the mind end up causing Cat to front and for me to lose it. It can happen quickly and I find it extremely frustrating. The other way I lose the front is when I'm actively listening to someone else and don't have the opportunity to confirm to myself that I'm me. At best I experience blending, at worst I lose the front to Cat. This has happened all semester during my English class, and when I feel like I'm blending I tell myself I just have to ride it out. I only feel better once I get a chance to confirm to myself that I'm me, usually when my professor stops talking or I'm working on classwork.

 

Hmm, while I could see this experience vaguely relating to ours, it's not at all how we've experienced it. My tulpas have been entirely sure of themselves being switched and in control since literally day one of switching. Now, they may have stronger identities than you or something along those lines, but I can't see that being what's making all the difference. I think you guys might just have a naturally harder time learning to switch, at the very least. Best case scenario you're just not actually switching, worst case you just can't do it like others. Middle.. not quite doing it right, and your lack of confidence in your sense of self is getting in the way? I don't really know, it seems learning to switch just never goes the same for everyone.

 

I played some Smash to test this recently, and I found that I was able to stay feeling like myself because I was constantly reminding myself I was me during game-play. If I played a harder mode where I would have to focus like I do in class, I believe I would feel confused about who I am and be at risk of losing the front.

 

This is what makes me want to relate to your experience, because these are the activities where the "autopilot" I mentioned (in place of your term passive self) tends to kick in, where my tulpas aren't consciously thinking (like in words, so not their own mindvoice either) and might be a bit more like me. If they try they can consciously stay themselves while playing Smash for 2 hours, but usually they won't do that, and with the autopilot those 2 hours of experience would probably have looked the same no matter who was fronting. (It wouldn't if they were making the effort to consciously check-in throughout)

 

But.. that autopilot doesn't make them lose the front at all. Any moment of thinking consciously in that time is still them, and I don't feel the sense of switching going on instantly or anything implying they're switching with me and back when it happens. The autopilot (that looks a lot like me, because it's just the body's default state) just doesn't kick them out of the front, and any activity is still them during it. Though to be fair I don't remember many experiences like this from earlier on in our switching, and it's possible they were keeping up that constantly conscious state the entire time for a month or so (the time when they tended to make the whole body tired after fronting for a while) until their sense of self when fronting was even easier to keep up?

 

Well, you see why I'm not sure if your experience is a different version of ours you're just struggling more with, or if it's unrelated. While my tulpas (aside from Lucilyn) were a little over 4 years old when we first started switching, I don't think we would've experienced the struggles you're having even at year two. Year one was too chaotic to gauge though.

 

{The idea that I have to give in and lose myself seems exactly the opposite of what I'm doing to keep myself stable.} That's why I'm so against the idea. I can try testing it again and I can tell you guys what happens, but my guess is I'll just lose the front to Cat.

 

I mean, I think it is? I'd only see that being reasonable if it was done to stop you from stressing out so much lol, I completely believe that if you are switching then you're being overpowered by Cat, if not losing the front entirely. I do wonder why your "I'm me" affirmations haven't made things easier by now though-

 

This is a miserable experience for me. If this is switching, then switching sucks. It's a lot of work, it's exhausting, and it makes me really insecure abut who I am. I don't want to spend the rest of my life playing Smash and telling myself "I'm me, I'm me, I'm me" over and over again.

 

Is it switching, I don't know. But is that what it's supposed to be like? Not at all, no, especially not after the amount of work you've put into it. I can't tell if you're just overly sensitive to the equivalent of your body's autopilot state (that always resembles the host, since they were formed together over the course of your host's whole life), possibly because your sense of identity to differentiate yourself isn't strong enough (or possibly not, just normal differing in every system's individual experience), or if you're not actually switching in the first place. I wish it truly was as simple as "You're switching or you're not, just possessing", but as we've seen from the "Advanced Possession" a lot of people eventually learn to do, it's probably more of a spectrum, adding complexity to what was already pretty complex even if Switching & Possession was all there was.

 

I'm also frustrated that it seems like Cat will never have to work hard to front, just because she was born first and fronting for longer. This just makes me feel even more insecure about my identity, like I'm just another version of Cat or a median member where the only unique thing I do is socialize on the forums more often.

 

I also can't see even you being literally a median aspect that's just slightly different from your host causing these exact problems with switching. Flandre thinks pretty similarly to me, but aside from her having a strong sense of identity like all my tulpas, her preferred state of being completely conscious and actively thinking while switched still looks pretty similar to mine. It's different, but it's close enough that if this were the entire reason you were having these problems, we'd have experienced at least a little doubt from it. But nope, despite not being as standout as Lucilyn or Tewi, Flan has never had any issues with doubt in switching at all.

 

Flan's obviously a tulpa, but if a "median aspect" was different enough to warrant being differentiated from the host, they couldn't be too different from me and Flan when it comes to switching. All it takes is having a separate identity, I don't believe being "different" is necessary at all - though it probably helps, I'm sure if switching went (far) less well for us, Flan would run into doubts before Lucilyn.

 

I was hoping switching would help me achieve confidence in who I am, not take it away from me.

Oh, Ranger! I wish I had realized months ago that was your goal. Switching helps with agency, not self-concept. I switch in to be able to do more that matters, then am glad to switch out to feel more myself. (I'm not any less prominent or powerful in the mind when switched out, so that isn't a motivation.) Switching has only ever attacked my confidence in who I am. I had to figure out other ways to shore up my sense of identity enough to not feel threatened by switching.

 

Hmm, "Switching has only ever attacked my confidence in who I am" is a harsh way to put it, but I guess we'd sort of agree? Might be a matter of perspective. Tewi has spent countless hours directly fighting the brain and how it thinks, trying to shape it (mostly just for while she's switched, although some effects carry over system-wide) into working more like her own thinking should. So my tulpas would definitely agree that they have an easier time being themselves when not fronting, but that's still never bothered them to the point where they were happy to switch out. It's looking more and more like they've just got really solid identities/sense-of-selves or something, and/or that our system naturally has an easier time differentiating these things. Well, hey, I didn't spend like seven years deeply immersed in introspection and self-improvement to have a brain that's hard to live in.

 

BUT, though. It's not all "being attacked" or feeling bad. Learning and getting to switch definitely helped my tulpas grow as people. While they did have to fight the mind a bit here and there to be themselves, all of the experience of interacting with the world and different scenarios as themselves only served to help them grow, and both I and they are more confident in themselves as people than ever before. Heck, maybe even the fighting-the-mind and affirmations that they're them (very rare outside of the early days of switching)/of how they should be thinking helped too. While I wouldn't say it was totally easy, and I'm sure different tulpas and systems will find it more or less helpful (plenty of tulpas say they prefer an inner life to an external one), I'd still say switching and fronting has been a very very good experience for them as people. Any "being attacked" they had to face from the mind thinking more like me/the body default only served to help them grow.

 

Though again, right from the start they were never really in danger of switching back on accident or even really "blending" with me (perhaps because we never chose to think of it like that), and it's a little hard to say how much of that is our skill and sureness in working with the mind and our sense of selves, and how much is just system individual differences and us having a naturally easier time.

 

I still can't say "Just keep trying and it'll get better!" because I don't know how your system works or how your experience will end up going. While that's an enabling thing to say in tulpamancy (heck, just in general), you can't really know something is possible or at least likely for someone else just because it was for you. But as long as you still want to keep trying at it we'll keep helping.

 

 

Also, maybe unrelated, do you experience so much doubt when just possessing? Because if you can't even do possession without similar doubts happening whenever you go on autopilot (intensive activities or social ones), that really points towards needing work on just that rather than just your switching method. I'm sure it's both either way, but yeah. Also - if you can deal with all the "being attacked" from the brain defaulting towards being like your host, I do think you'll come out of the experience much more sure of yourself as a separate person. But perhaps this requires some level of input of self-confidence in order to get the output of more, and you might not be ready for it yet. Reminds me of the Clan Trials in Final Fantasy Tactics A2, where you need the chosen stat to be high enough before taking on the Trial that raises it higher lol.

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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The issue that Ranger's system and my system have is that we can't switch yet. It's not that we've switched but just don't know it. We have lengthy discussions about how to figure out switching because we can't do it yet, not because we can and just don't know it, lol.

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

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

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  • 2 weeks later...

I did some laundry today and yesterday, and it gave me more insight about how our system works and why I was struggling with being confused. This isn't a switching model or anything, just observations.

 

Gray isn't a big fan of cleaning, and doing laundry is no exception. As I was folding clothes, Gray was getting really bored. However, he was also restless, and he told me he was uncomfortable and he wanted the front to do something else. I told him that this needed to be done and I didn't mind doing it. He continued to express his irritation and discomfort, and he even said he was very close to just snatching the front from me.

 

One of the things I realized was as I was folding clothes, I was hot. I took off my hoodie and I felt a little better. Later I turned the fan on. From that point, Gray gave me less trouble and what was left was Gray's unconscious thoughts and some intrusive thoughts. Realizing that was working, I also wondered if the body was dehydrated and I drank a glass of water. From that point, the unconscious thoughts became easier to manage and eventually I was able to overpower those thoughts entirely.

 

Later Gray would wake up again, but he was cooperative instead of bothersome. He chatted with me a little bit and then left me alone. After finishing all of the laundry I needed to get done, I felt like I accomplished one of my goals- doing something Gray doesn't like doing.

 

Even tough I was proud to eventually overcome fighting Gray's intrusive "ghost", I felt like some things were not quite right. Even though I got Gray to back off, it seemed like he did so through self-control, not because I truly acted against his will. I think Gray trusted me enough to hold himself back. With switching, shouldn't Gray's opinion on what's happening no longer matter once he's switched out?

 

I also thought it was interesting that taking care of the body was a big help in controlling Gray. This reminded me of the last time Gray caused trouble- when Bune was trying to read something Gray thought was boring. He was tired and hungry at the time, and he kicked Bune out so he could sit there and feel uncomfortable. I believe while I was doing laundry, Gray's tolerance for me fronting was low, but when I cooled off the body and drank some water, his tolerance rose and he backed off.

 

I believe this is the key- Gray is ultimately still connected to the body's senses. Whether he wanted to or not, I think he caused problems while I was folding laundry because he was physically uncomfortable, not just bored. Him running off and doing something else, probably sitting down to puzzle or work on math things- would have cooled him off and made him feel better. He can't completely go dormant because he is still directly tied to the body. Even if I manage to overpower his "ghost" of unconscious thoughts, that doesn't change the fact he is still directly connected.

 

In the past, I questioned this definition of switching because Ember.Vesper's system seemed to be a counter-example. They felt everything, so I didn't consider it a reliable indicator for switching. After thinking about it in retrospect, I realized why I was wrong. Ember, Vesper, and Iris constantly co-front, and co-fronting or being active makes headmates aware of the body's senses. I conflated the belief that being able to detect the body's senses meant one was directly connected to them, especially because I always considered feeling the body's senses as optional. My guess is when they switch, the person directly attached to the body still changes.

 

For this reason, I can also finally cross off my struggle with managing Gray's unconscious thoughts as the reason why I can't switch. When we front, we leave an imprint on the body of who should be fronting based on the situation, like memory foam. This is very similar to the Bear system's body OS, which is why I was tempted to adopt that terminology. Since Gray and I pass the front around like a hot potato, it's possible passing the front got mixed up with that system, and as a result unconscious thoughts can lead to passing the front to someone else if those thoughts are dwelled on.

 

This system is connected to issues like Gray being triggered to the front for trained and specific situations, but it does not explain Gray's startle response nor Gray's desire to take up the front and sit by himself when he is uncomfortable or in pain. For all of these reasons, I concluded that what I do is still possession, even though Gray dissociates to the point where he is in a trance state and minimally aware.

 

In one of our older switching attempts, Gray told me he felt he lost control of the body. We are not sure what triggered it, but that day may have been our first switch. I feel better that I was able to sort out my confusion and I look forward to crafting new ideas for how to switch.

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.

 

If I missed seeing your art, please PM/DM me!

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

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With switching, shouldn't Gray's opinion on what's happening no longer matter once he's switched out?

 

Yes, and what you just described happening sounds 100% fitting to possession to me, and utterly unrelated to switching. There has never once been a moment where any non-fronter in our system was significantly upset or annoyed by what the fronter was doing or experiencing that the thought that they'd want it to stop has come up. But, of course, that makes sense with possession because your host is still very connected, you're just piloting them, and they still necessarily experience everything.

 

I think when Ember says her system "feels everything", it's mostly the same as our system, insofar as our systemmates are simply aware of the senses. They also co-front and are far more active all the time than my tulpas, so it'd make sense for their non-fronters to be at least a little attached to the senses, I think. I dunno, I'm not them. But I am me, and I can say for sure that a non-fronter's opinions on what the body is experiencing should be almost totally detached. Honestly, a little dislike might leak through (happens rarely when one of my tulpas/Tewi has me active while they're fronting and thinks about doing something I really don't want to do, but they've always been able to ignore it), but overall your host shouldn't care about discomfort and the like, just logical and emotional things, ie when Flandre was with me while having my wisdom teeth out while maybe-not-numbed-like-I-should've-been, she wasn't "experiencing" the pain herself, but she was very aware of it and distressed for my sake. But that was completely different and separate from if she'd been experiencing it herself, it was just her worrying about me.

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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Since Gray and I pass the front around like a hot potato, it's possible passing the front got mixed up with that system, and as a result unconscious thoughts can lead to passing the front to someone else if those thoughts are dwelled on. 

Get ready for more comments from someone who doesn't switch... How is your fronting hygiene? It sounds like you guys just grab front whenever without any ceremony and I wonder if that contributes to the problem. See if you can make very clear boundaries each time you change fronters. Go through the same steps each time (even if you could take front instantly), respect the one in front until you both agree to go through the steps again and exchange control. It really really sounds like Gray doesn't respect the fronter and he needs to let you guys front in peace without grabbing back control. You might be training the brain that anything goes and Gray is always in charge and ready to take over.

 

 

Actually, I'm almost wondering if I have gone inactive in a switch once (or twice?), according to one switching definition at least. It was confusing and uncomfortable enough that we switched back however, and probably the reason we haven't tried much since. This is a model of switching with only one consciousness, described by Ponk's system. In a switch the conscious experience is uninterrupted and it's the tulpa's identity attached to the consciousness instead of the host. The host is not experiencing the body, but it's not like going to sleep or being dissociated, they're just not there. With the wrong mindset, it may feel like the host is still there because conscious experience continues, and hosts are used to believing that the conscious experience is a part of them. Or the consciousness believes it's the host? So in our case, Aya couldn't get me to respond, and started to believe the switch went wrong and I was fooling myself into believing I was Aya or something. We achieved that result by having Aya do some solo wonderland exploration and narration prior to the switch attempt, so I was already pretty unresponsive to start.

Host: YukariTelepath

Tulpas: Aya, Ruki

 

Imposition log

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Two things.

 

One, when Bear switches out, the only time body memories don't feel like his are in 'way back' and 'dormant'. It was only after he was able to go dormant that we could really test what was body and what was Bear. The body is heavily tainted with Bear essence, because he was the one who trained it, so it acts like him. Follow that and things make sence how you didn't think you switched. The body doesn't think though, it doesn't interfere with your mental activity, but it can rarely speak, these are trained responses, it might say "okay", or "just a minute", without interrupting anything we're doing.

 

Two, co-fronting is really bad switching hygiene, really bad. There's blending and fast switching, interruptions and wrestling going on, but we don't mind. Clean switching isn't like that at all. However, if Bear is in tulpa position (not watcher, way back, or dormant) he can and does possess and blend with the fronter, I don't mind, Joy hates it. So Joy will kick everyone to watcher or wayback, and she can have a clean, uninterrupted time. She sets it up such that we can't even pop up like any good tulpa without her allowing it ahead of time. If Joy wanted to, she could take the body and forget about us, we can't take front from her by force, she, in essence, locks the gate.

 

I don't do that, that's not normal Bear System protocol, but it could be, we all have that ability.

 

Good luck!

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Even though I got Gray to back off, it seemed like he did so through self-control, not because I truly acted against his will. I think Gray trusted me enough to hold himself back.

 

Vesper: That's still a very good thing, for reasons I addressed in my last post.

 

With switching, shouldn't Gray's opinion on what's happening no longer matter once he's switched out?

 

Maybe. Due to my experience, I would tend to expect that of a host. But my opinion still matters a lot when I'm switched out, so that isn't a generally applicable statement.

 

He can't completely go dormant because he is still directly tied to the body.

 

Ember: I can and do go completely dormant in spite of being directly tied to the physical senses. We've worked hard for over a year to reduce dormancy, but that was my default for a long time. I still require more much more attention to sustain higher level thought while switched out than either of my headmates.

 

My guess is when they switch, the person directly attached to the body still changes.

 

Vesper: We are all fully and directly attached to the physical senses at all times -- when switching, possessing, co-fronting, eclipsing, talking to one another, not talking to one another, and even when not aware enough to string coherent words together or when the body is sprawled out almost catatonically because we are devoting all of our attention to the mindscape. Our connection to the physical senses is the most invariant feature of our internal experience.

 

Switching changes who is in default control of the body. It changes who is responsible for forcing. It changes who remains completely conscious and alert regardless of the level of external distraction. It changes who the body lies to, trying to convince them that they are the body.

 

Ember, Vesper, and Iris constantly co-front, and co-fronting or being active makes headmates aware of the body's senses.

 

We were always aware of the physical senses if conscious in the slightest degree before we ever co-fronted, possessed, or switched. Co-fronting was a gradual outgrowth of becoming good at switching.

 

Though we may be using the terms differently. We have striven for a year to increase our degree of co-consciousness and we've gradually become skilled enough at possession and eclipsing that we can largely just do what we want when we want without asking permission. But we only use the term co-fronting for the state where we literally cannot tell who is switched in, where two of us are on absolutely equal footing. We only enter that state occasionally and we've actually cut back in recent months in favour of rapidly switching back and forth.

 

Our inspiration for just making use of the body whenever was Ember's ex-wives, who learned how to conduct their internal conversations out loud so that Ember could hear them. One of them repeatedly complained when Ember withdrew from her to talk to me, saying that we should speak where everyone could hear.

 

They were also our inspiration for making switches smooth and rapid, where we don't flinch or break stride. We're told that there is just a faint hitch in our breathing during a switch, as there was for them. We can't perceive it, so there may be a sensory interruption in switching that gets smoothed over in post-processing.

 

I always considered feeling the body's senses as optional.

 

That’s a mind boggling concept. We would tune them out if we could.

 

There has never once been a moment where any non-fronter in our system was significantly upset or annoyed by what the fronter was doing or experiencing that the thought that they'd want it to stop has come up.

 

I find that shocking too. I’ve had those moments since before I ever switched or possessed or heard the word 'tulpamancer'. For the past two and a half years: When I feel Ember is wasting time, I tell her so. When Ember slouches, I tell her to sit up. When the body is hot or cold, I'm the one who complains to fix the problem. When the body has to travel through sunlight, I'm the one that screams inside. When Ember turns on the gas stove, I’m the one who tells her to stand back. I'm the one who ended Ember's many physical tics by telling her repeatedly, 'You don't need to do that'. When Ember wants sweets, I have to intentionally distance myself or she can't enjoy them. Often, when she sees them and wants them, the response wave of loathing that comes from me makes her turn away.

 

The one thing that I somehow fail to notice while switched out is how dirty our glasses are. I have to clean them almost every time I switch in.

 

Not stopping what Ember is doing a lot more often is a matter of respect, love, and intentional forbearance, not a matter of perception or ability.

 

In a switch the conscious experience is uninterrupted and it's the tulpa's identity attached to the consciousness instead of the host.

 

Yes, absolutely. You get it.

 

co-fronting is really bad switching hygiene, really bad

 

I'm not sure what you mean. Co-fronting is a useful part of our tool set and has never done us any harm that we can tell.

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 find that shocking too. I’ve had those moments since before I ever switched or possessed or heard the word 'tulpamancer'. For the past two and a half years: When I feel Ember is wasting time, I tell her so. When Ember slouches, I tell her to sit up. When ...

 

I was hoping what I said wasn't taken this way, even though that's what it sounds like. I meant more stuff a non-fronter dislikes that the fronter doesn't care about, like the body being hot or an activity like putting clothes away being boring. {Edit: Forgot to mention "Also it's not common for tulpas to so actively bug their hosts anyway"} While my system doesn't offer unwanted advice (and really never demands), part of that is from us not being active 99% of the time, and part is just our system dynamic I guess. We do talk about stuff a lot, so opinions are shared plenty, but none of us ever feel the need to point something out without being asked. Luckily, I talk to Tewi about important things on my mind all the time, and she has plenty of stuff to say in those times.

 

Vesper: We are all fully and directly attached to the physical senses at all times -- when switching, possessing, co-fronting, eclipsing, talking to one another, not talking to one another, and even when not aware enough to string coherent words together or when the body is sprawled out almost catatonically because we are devoting all of our attention to the mindscape. Our connection to the physical senses is the most invariant feature of our internal experience.

/

That’s a mind boggling concept. We would tune them out if we could.

 

I'm still not clear on what exactly you guys mean by connected to the senses. If a non-fronting vampire is upset by the fronter putting the body in sunlight, that really sounds like literal connection to the senses, but in every other case than you guys I've heard of that's not what we mean. My tulpas are "connected to the senses" insofar as they're directly aware of them. There's nothing between the sensory perception and their experience of them, except the fact that they literally are not associated with the body except when fronting. So having my wisdom teeth out without being totally numbed, the most painful experience in my life to date, was pretty upsetting to me (I've got some pretty extreme pain tolerance though). Flandre, who I had with me just in-mind, was obviously incredibly aware of that pain - but it wasn't her pain, it was mine and the body's. While I was at least a little busy kind of dealing with the pain, she was entirely unimpeded and all she was really feeling was being very distraught that I was in pain.

 

And that's not how it is for you guys, supposedly? Even the non-fronters "feel" the pain, would flinch or physically react to it? Because that's what you make it sound like, and it's pretty weird, a fairly unique experience if that's the case. I wouldn't expect many others to relate to you there, at least on .info, based on my own experience on the forum over the years

 

Switching changes who is in default control of the body. It changes who is responsible for forcing. It changes who remains completely conscious and alert regardless of the level of external distraction. It changes who the body lies to, trying to convince them that they are the body.

 

Huh, there you go again saying something I could never have imagined someone other than myself saying. Though I wouldn't have thought to put it like that either, lol, it certainly resonates with me. But that's just because I was taught by the self-help stuff I read that "I" am not "the rest of me/the body", just the conscious part. I'm thinking more and more I was very lucky to learn to think that way before getting heavily into tulpamancy.

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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