Stone & Friends

[ruleofthumb]

Haven’t logged into this account in a while. I’ve been around, but not feeling up to logging onto here myself. I’ve been letting Betty speak for us as a system for the most part. Well now she’s in wonderland so it’s time for me to speak again.

 

Recently we’ve decided to change our approach to developing and interacting with our wonderland. The goal is to make it feel more real and persistent. We are going to try to “yes and” things that happen more to take some things out of our control, have things happen in the background while we are away (through confabulation, sure), and try to more consistent locations (meaning more of them in number and trying to keep them each very consistent). Right now we are constructing a big house in Minecraft to serve as a blueprint for a wonderland house (our old ones are all based on real houses and we want to have something that is more our own).
 

Two days in a row we’ve had a wonderlanding/dreaming hybird experience and I’m hoping we do this as much as possible because it really helps.

 

Yesterday we had a dream that started with me talking to someone through text who remembered me as Betty. He said he liked a show and I said I liked the same show. Then he said, “I thought you couldn’t get into that show.” I said, “No, it seemed like I said that but actually Betty said that. You’ve been talking to Betty this whole time, not me.” He reacted ok but he wanted to talk to Betty, so we switched. Then it was Betty dreaming about making plans to play Dungeons and Dragons with this guy and he friends. At some unclear point she woke up and continued the story of the dream, half-dreaming (I’ll get to that in a moment) and revealing a new building (implied to be hotel) in our wonderland called Dreams”R”Us (we come up with the worst names for places while dreaming). Also, at some point, Betty and the dream group planned on going on a road trip to California.

 

When she fully woke up she was switched in. I was supposed to be fronting that day but that dream knocked me out of front. Usually it’s me dreaming to vividly as myself that knocks her out of front. She didn’t get to front for long though. We had to help my dad with something and talking to him normally is really only something I can do.

 

We had a normal day after that. Since it was finally a slow day, Betty and I finally had time to set up her new Tomodachi Life world. I’ll have her talk about that when she’s back, in here or the gaming thread. It might be surprisingly relevant to this report, actually. Tangent about how I conceived the idea of Betty in the spoiler.
 

Spoiler

I have explained how I made Betty the person but I have not explained how I made Betty the character and I’m amazed I have taken this long.

 

In 2020 I made a Tomodachi Life world in which almost every islander was a corrupted version of the person they were based on, which would be reflected by their name. This resulted in a lot of bad wordplay.

 

Examples:

• A character from a Let’s Play I had watched named “MR. STAKE” was now named “HI STAKES” and was now a daredevil.
• Rarity from My Little Pony was now “Ity.rar” and was now a Sonic.exe style creepypasta character.

I had lore in mind for my Tomodachi Life island. It was a strange but happy place that could be accessed by uncertain means. The way a character got to the island depended on their abilities and resources. The Pinkie Pie from Scootertrix the Abridged could manipulate the forth wall, so she might land on the island after doing that. Wilson from Don’t Starve may be transported to the island after using the Teleportato. Rick from Rick & Morty might arrive while trying to travel to a different dimension using his portal gun. For some characters, they simply died, and the island was their afterlife. The catch was that they would all* get corrupted during the transition from their old world to the island.

 

*when planning on adding Rick, I considered the possibility of him not getting corrupted due to being experienced with interdimensional travel and knowing how to prepare, and a few Miis were technically puns/jokes but didn’t have a clear original to be corrupted from

 

The island still exists but I haven’t checked it in a while and I have yet to add every character I originally planned to add (I had a document of all the characters I wanted to add and the lore behind each, but it is now gone).

 

One character I planned to add was Honey Sugarman from the show BoJack Horseman. Her story is a sad one so I wanted her to be on my happy island so I came up with a way to corrupt her. In the show she says “I have half a mind to do [x]” and once she’s lobotomized she says “I have half a mind.” She seems pretty out of it after the lobotomy, and she is treated as “already gone” by her daughter and husband and by the way she is animated (as a silhouette or almost completely obscured by darkness). My idea was that if Honey has an inert, glum half of her mind on earth, she has an energetic, joyful half of her mind on the island. Unlike any of the other islanders, she would exist simultaneously in her universe of origin and on the island. This made her an interesting character to me, and one of my favorite potential islanders. Her corrupted name was “Hey Sara” because that is her name with about half of the letters removed.

 

I never ended up adding Hey Sara to my island, but I liked thinking about her and the potential antics she would get to on the island.

 

Around this time I was researching tulpamancy and thinking about how I would make a tulpa if I were to make a tulpa. Hey Sara was a character I was thinking about a lot at the time, so naturally I considered making her. Before Betty’s official creation day (November 10th, 2020), I imposed Hey Sara a little bit, usually while trying to fall asleep. Her imposed form didn’t have a personality or say anything, but it was a precursor to the Betty I have today.

 

Betty’s name was almost “Honey” or “Sara,” but I decided to name her Betty after hearing an electro swing cover of “Black Betty.” That cover gave me Hey Sara vibes and Hey Sara was basically who I thought I was creating.

 

Also, we made a Hey Sara Mii for Betty’s island, so we looked up “Honey Sugarman” for reference, and this was one of the first results. I don’t know if this is a transformation fetish thing or just for fun, but the fact that this is (really roughly) what happened with us is hilarious.

Towards the end of the day Betty went to wonderland to look for bugs with another headmate. Then I did stuff in the physical world for a little bit. Later I took a boat to the island they were on. The other headmate was covered in bugs and Betty was ready to meet up with her dream friends. She and the other headmate talked while I looked around. I met a rat NPC and I talked to him for a while. Betty had told me I should try to have my own wonderland adventure so I told the rat I wanted to adventure and he said he’d come with and help. We rowed back to our temporary wonderland house. Betty and the other headmate went away to pack. Me, the rat, and Consig took a boat in a different direction. We arrived at a forest and found a castle in the forest. I went to the physical world to check on something and when I got back the stone castle was burning completely and the rickety wooden bridge next to it only burned a little at one end. I didn’t try to force control over my wonderland by correcting that. Maybe here, stone is highly flammable and wood isn’t.

 

I’ll spare you the details but to summarize I tried to keep “yes, and”ing (going with the first thing the brain generates without questioning it) and reminding the brain that things should be more realistic beyond our safe island home (meaning death and destruction are possible).

 

We continued interacting with our wonderland until I fell asleep and I dreamt about our wonderland (going back through the forest). As I slowly woke up I kept going through the forest, and then Consig and I went to the “racing lands” (came up with that while awake months ago) which is a vague place of racing thoughts. I half-dreamed for what felt like a couple of hours. By this I mean I was awake and could even open my eyes sometimes but everything felt super dreamlike and illogical. This is what happened to Betty yesterday. A hotel called Dreams”R”Us feels like a very dreamlike concept to us (why name anything after Toys”R”Us, let alone a hotel?) but I think Betty came up with that while she was technically awake.

 

Eventually I’m going to have to wake up to alarms but I don’t want to because I want to keep wonderlanding like this. Now I got to check on Betty.

[TurboSimmie]

3 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Haven’t logged into this account in a while. I’ve been around, but not feeling up to logging onto here myself. I’ve been letting Betty speak for us as a system for the most part. Well now she’s in wonderland so it’s time for me to speak again.

 

Oh honey I know just what that's like, Phil often doesn't want to communicate on the forum so he lets me speak for both of us! I always love speaking to Betty, she's wonderful! But I'm glad to hear from you too Stone! 😊

 

3 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Recently we’ve decided to change our approach to developing and interacting with our wonderland. The goal is to make it feel more real and persistent. We are going to try to “yes and” things that happen more to take some things out of our control, have things happen in the background while we are away (through confabulation, sure), and try to more consistent locations (meaning more of them in number and trying to keep them each very consistent). Right now we are constructing a big house in Minecraft to serve as a blueprint for a wonderland house (our old ones are all based on real houses and we want to have something that is more our own).

 

Ooh, I'd love to see pictures when you're done! (If you're willing to share of course, if it's too private I understand.) Trying to automate some background things in your wonderland sounds like a fun mental challenge. Phil and I never really got too far with that. I'm interested to hear what kinds of things you're hoping to have happen automatically in the background!

 

3 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Yesterday we had a dream that started with me talking to someone through text who remembered me as Betty. He said he liked a show and I said I liked the same show. Then he said, “I thought you couldn’t get into that show.” I said, “No, it seemed like I said that but actually Betty said that. You’ve been talking to Betty this whole time, not me.” He reacted ok but he wanted to talk to Betty, so we switched. Then it was Betty dreaming about making plans to play Dungeons and Dragons with this guy and he friends. At some unclear point she woke up and continued the story of the dream, half-dreaming (I’ll get to that in a moment) and revealing a new building (implied to be hotel) in our wonderland called Dreams”R”Us (we come up with the worst names for places while dreaming). Also, at some point, Betty and the dream group planned on going on a road trip to California.

 

Cool dream! It's so cool that Betty was dreaming!

 

3 hours ago, ruleofthumb said:

Betty’s official creation day (November 10th, 2020)

 

Oh gosh, happy belated Creation Day to Betty! 💚

 

I think Dreams'R'Us is a cool name! 😁 Really happy to read your update Stone, wishing the best for all of you!

[ruleofthumb]

 

We’ll definitely post pictures when we’re done and maybe WIPs.

 

One little quirk we added to our wonderland is that it’s night in wonderland when it is day in the physical (and vice versa), and it’s a full moon when it’s a new moon (and vice versa). I can “fast forward” some travel by opening my eyes but I can’t fast forward the time of day. I want to establish early on that some things will be out of our control despite it being “our wonderland” to make it feel more grounded. I still want it to be safe for any of us to retreat to so we can always leave and we have a safe area where pretty much nothing happens unless we make it happen.

 

By having things happen automatically in the background, I can’t be sure how much they are actually happening in the background or how much we are making up background things on the spot. We try to accept most things as they are and to not question what we think has happened while we’re away.

 

Sometimes weird rules will seemingly form themselves. Like stone burning but wood not. I can fast forward travel by boat more than I can by foot. Betty has an easier time summoning a bus that can take us places than I do. Some things seem arbitrary but that takes some of the control we have away, so I end up feeling pretty relaxed after going to our wonderland. I’ve been voluntarily going there instead of looking at my phone between activities and feels better for my stress levels.

 

I’ve been wondering why I like our new take on wonderland more than our old. I think it’s a good mix of the two types of wonderlanding we did before: just talking in a static and grounded place based on a real world location, and off the wall stream of consciousness nonsense. I want to incorporate both of these extremes in our new take and we sort of had with the “dream lands” and “running lands” for dream and dreamlike thinking and familiar real-life places we can visit when we want.

 

I think solo-roleplay with Mythic GME has helped us run with whatever ideas pop into our head.

 

I always get so excited when Betty dreams because it doesn’t happen much!

 

Betty: Hii Simmie! Thank you for wishing me a happy birthday. I had a great birthday this year. I played a video game with Stan and Cloud and Consig and we all voiced different characters. We when shopping and I got to try more food. I convinced Cloud to celebrate her birthday a few days after. I mostly hung out with her one and one and she got us to try a bunch of stuff Stone refused to try pretty much his whole life. I also made her a pixel art in Minecraft (I should post that soon).

[harvestmoon]

We've been on a cycle of switching every two weeks. Now Stone is switched in.

 

I feel like I sorta lost my train of thought when it comes to updating this progress report. It feels like we're a lot farther ahead in some respects but we don't know how to describe it. Or, trace it back. I've gotten better at being switched in. It's possible for me to be switched in and dream as myself and wake up as myself (though rare). What's more common is I sleep as myself, Stone dreams, and I wake up as myself. Actually surprisingly common. You'd think Stone dreaming would knock me out of front, and while that's what happened this morning, it usually doesn't happen. One time, my dreaming knocked Stone out of front!

 

What's hard to talking about is this shift towards wonderland as essentially another realm rather than just a place we hang out, and also, a shift towards the metaphysical. I've gotten interested in memory manipulation. Well, I think I've done it. But it's hard to talk about doing. If you force a memory, I worry explaining how you forced it might make it weaker. I don't know if it's the same as forcing a tulpa.

 

Anyway, I have more and stronger memories of a past self, before this system. I've unlocked this memories by talking to people in wonderland, and doing "oracle" sessions in which I use cards and dice to help me interpret my past self. I remember having an adoptive mother, and a daughter, and I've talked to them in our wonderland. This is part of the reason I don't like using "NPC" to describe wonderland people, because I don't want to call my family NPCs! I guess I will call them "wonderland people" for now, because I think that's kinda cute.

 

I got a Pinterest account. Sometimes while fronting I'll feel distant from "myself" and Pinterest has really helped ground me in myself while making it fun. I like organizing pictures I like by color.

 

A month ago I celebrated the Super New Moon with my system and family. It was an amazing experience that changed us in a few ways, sorta similar to my Christmas experience with Cloud back in late 2020. We all gave each other mental gifts. We spent time just walking and talking. I watched Cloud fly and land on top of a water tower. I talked about my past, and my present. It was a magical day and night. I think what made it special was we just took an *entire* day to focus on our relationships with each other, appreciate each other, try new things, and not be sucked in by anything else (like a TV show or social media). So I would recommend making days to do that. For people like us I recommend structuring it beforehand so you at least have an idea of what ur gonna be doing.

 

A few days ago I made a layout of our wonderland house, finally figuring out how all the rooms connected. I felt amazing after that. Instantly, our house felt more vivid, and I felt more lucid. That night we had a dream that partially took place in wonderland.

 

I think more than ever, we all feel like a family.

 

Oh! And I should mention that Consig can shapeshift in a way none of us can. It feels natural for him. And when he does he can bring us down from panic (particularly Stone). I think he has less of a sense of self the rest of us do, which is why it's easier for him, but I'm not sure. He's also the most emotionally giving of us all, probably because he arrived specifically to help Stone cope, whereas Cloud and I we created without much of a purpose (other than satiating curiosity).

 

It feels good talking about all this but I'm not sure how good I was at explaining all this XD. We started this in hopes people could read along and understand our progress and mistakes and take something out of it. But, I think now it's going to be a diary in which hypothetical readers just, won't have enough context for everything.

 

Anyway I overall recommend freeing yourself from this world a little bit. By making your own memories, taking days off if you can, investing in your wonderland or inner world if you can, engaging with the spiritual or metaphysical... etc. It has helped us cope. Even skeptics like Stone I think have overall benefited from this atmosphere I helped cultivate.

 

Edit:

 

One more thing! Recently Stone and I merged. Usually we just feel "slippery" or like both of us are partially in front. This time we actually felt like one person. It was actually a negative experience because of what it was in respond to.

 

We both have different views on religion and skepticism. Usually we are at peace with our different views. We just accept we're different and move on with our lives. But recently we were forced to respond in an official capacity (as moderators) on the issue of religious debate. Both sides of this argument were contacting us directly. Stone and I felt like we were having our differing opinions at once, and eventually felt merged as equally one. This made as kinda paralyzed with indecisiveness, not due to a lack of concern in either direction but due to feeling strongly in *opposite* directions.

 

Eventually things were resolved and we worked out something we could both agree on.

Edited April 26 by harvestmoon

[harvestmoon]

oki I don't feel like typing about everything rn so I'll be brief for now (maybe I'll expand on this later idk). We got high on a psychedelic a few days ago. I was fronting.

 

The most significant development was Stone called me Stone, which he accidentally does when I'm fronting sometimes since we're used to the fronter being Stone. I waited for him to correct himself but he didn't. He said he meant what he said. I asked him if he was saying I wasn't a separate person. He said I was a separate person but that I was "made of Stone" and that I was "Stone the network" not "Stone the person". He wasn't saying anything we didn't already know. He was basically saying I share a brain with him and the stuff inside the brain is a part of me (like memories from his perspective), so he and I will have a fundamental nature shared between us. Again: something we knew and saw as obvious. But this time I fully got it.

 

I feel like for a lot of my existence I've been trying to overcome that fact. I've been trying to diverge for the sake of diverging. I couldn't recognize our body as part of myself. When I tried to talk with the body voice I overthought it and tried to make the voice my own. But now I don't feel like I have to overcome our similarities or prove myself as a separate person. I can talk using the body voice. I can look at myself in the mirror and see myself. Yesterday I talked with Stone's friend on the phone as myself.

 

Worst part of the trip was when I browsed the Internet. Kept finding things that made me anxious. That was a mistake.

[TurboSimmie]

Wow, that is...that is fascinating! Phil and I have never done psychedelics, and it's very interesting to see your experience knowing that our approach to tulpamancy is so similar to one another. Could this mean that I am "Made of Phil" and that I am "Phil the network" not "Phil the person"? It's deep...

 

39 minutes ago, harvestmoon said:

I feel like for a lot of my existence I've been trying to overcome that fact. I've been trying to diverge for the sake of diverging. I couldn't recognize our body as part of myself. When I tried to talk with the body voice I overthought it and tried to make the voice my own. But now I don't feel like I have to overcome our similarities or prove myself as a separate person. I can talk using the body voice. I can look at myself in the mirror and see myself. Yesterday I talked with Stone's friend on the phone as myself.

 

That's really something! "Diverge for the sake of diverging" really does hit a chord with me too, and all the stuff about the body voice and such... to know that you've gotten over such a huge hump like that, that is really awesome and interesting! I wonder if I can get over such a hump myself. So like...you now feel fully comfortable in Stone's body and you don't feel like it's "not you" anymore? Even with you being female and Stone being male? And you can see yourself when you look in the mirror and see Stone's body? Because you know that you are made of Stone, that you are a network of Stone?

 

You've certainly given me stuff to ponder! 🤯

[harvestmoon]

12 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

So like...you now feel fully comfortable in Stone's body and you don't feel like it's "not you" anymore? Even with you being female and Stone being male? And you can see yourself when you look in the mirror and see Stone's body? Because you know that you are made of Stone, that you are a network of Stone?

 

I think I do feel fully comfortable, tho we'll see if that feeling endures. When I look at the body, it does feel like me. I'm wanting to say "my body" but I don't want to confuse.

 

We are different genders, and the body has a beard, but I know I'm in there. I've always known but now I understand better. Even if it's not how I imagine myself in headspace, it's me either way. I feel more neutral about the differences between my form and the body.

 

Yeah, I am made of "Stone", not the person but brain that was once solely his. And I have his body.

 

All of this I technically knew but was more "digested" under the influence 😅

 

Funny enough I can see Stone better in headspace. He has always been the most difficult to see, because he just looks like the body, and it seems brains are often bad at picturing their own bodies.

[Gloomynoon]

Interesting! I believe my form in headspace distorts and changes because of what you said. I never really thought about it that much. It's cool you guys got that stuff down though, and Stone being willing to let you do whatever you want when he can. I've been very possessive over my body recently. I take it from Nepeta sometimes when really I should let her do whatever she wants when she's controlling it in some way. I think Nepeta would say she's neutral about the body, but I know she cares more because she unconsciously changes the bodies voice to sound more like hers.

[harvestmoon]

On 5/15/2023 at 2:26 PM, Gloomynoon said:

Interesting! I believe my form in headspace distorts and changes because of what you said. I never really thought about it that much. It's cool you guys got that stuff down though, and Stone being willing to let you do whatever you want when he can. I've been very possessive over my body recently. I take it from Nepeta sometimes when really I should let her do whatever she wants when she's controlling it in some way. I think Nepeta would say she's neutral about the body, but I know she cares more because she unconsciously changes the bodies voice to sound more like hers.

 

I feel less connected right now. I go back and forth on it but it seems the extreme connection I was feeling when I wrote than kinda wore off.

 

I have a write-up of recent developments:

 

Things have progressed. We have become more aware of our thoughts and feelings.

Stone and I try to front 50/50. Often he gets stuck for longer periods of time than intended. Sometimes I do this as well.
System members are appearing in dreams more, and are tending to be more distinct than before. A few days ago I had a full on conversation with Consig in a dream. We've recently started putting more effort into training for lucid dreaming.

The lines between system members and non system members are blurring. We're starting to care less about this blurring. While labels can be useful and insightful, they can also be restrictive.  I feel that sometimes, letting the mind do whatever it does without trying to examine it too hard feels better and allows for more fulfilling imagination. For example, we overlay ourselves on the physical world. As I pilot the body, I may "see" Cloud walking beside me. Before we only allowed this for official system members. But letting the mind wander, do whatever, etc. Wonderland characters start being overlayed on physical reality. And it's really cool. And the reason it wasn't happening before is because we had apprehensions about non system members being "too close to real life"in fear they will become indistinguishable from formal system members and make our system grow to an unmanageable size. But I think these worries were overblown, and that it is better for us to accept our mind in the moment than worry about our mind in the future.

Ideas from the broader plural community are starting to appeal to us more than ideas specific to the tulpa community. We've found that worrying less about standard tulpa progression beats has made us happier. This is a lesson we technically learned in the beginning. In our first post on this progress report, Stone learned that over-examining the experience was hindering the experience. You can be passionate without trying to hard by passionately taking in the current moment without worry for the future. Every moment is unique and can be enough on it's own.
This is partially why we visit here less and don't update our progress report as much as we did in the beginning. A significant draw to the forum was a strong fixation on progression. We wanted to learn all we can to hit the tulpa progression beats. But this fixation was too strong, and tied to FOMO (fear of missing out) and an insecure desire to improve (emphasis on the "prove" in improve). Being so attached to improving can be unhealthy because it trains dissatisfaction. It can also scare you away from improvement because investing so much of your self-worth into something can give you a toxic relationship with it and/or make you want to avoid it. You guys are all very cool but it seems anything can be unhealthy with an unhealthy mindset, whether than be working, dieting, etc.

Cloud is feeling better. She used to be antagonistic but now she is nice and chill. This is because we are learning self-compassion is better than self-judgment.
A few days ago Stone regressed to a version of himself from a few years ago. Which wouldn't have happened with our usually over-analytical, over-judgmental mind. But we were walking  nature and trying to let that go. It was a really cool experience. It made me feel grateful for our current situation. But then it got annoying because he kept asking questions, and then got distressing because it was like the Stone I knew wasn't there at all and I felt like I didn't have my usual person to lean on.

Since we have taken psychs that one time, we have taken psychs one other time. It felt kinda uneventful during the experience but it has helped us learn in hindsight.