Is Tulpamancy Self-Hypnosis?

[GrayTheCat]

52 minutes ago, ZenAndMika said:

While we're at it, I'll point out that all of the symbolic mechanisms OP describes there are essentially a form of self-hypnosis. None of them are logically true, but the act of organically visualizing something according to your own personal sense of symbolism, accepting it as true, whilst in a relaxed and suggestible state, is sufficient to cause your brain to give you a response. An easy, passive (rather than active) sense of belief is a major component in making hypnosis have a powerful effect. As a side-by-side, if you listen to a hypnosis script and all the way through engage your critical thinking and think "Is this working?" You will have either a significantly reduced response if any, or no response at all. Even if you do know what hypnosis can do.

 

I think this is interesting because I thought of tulpamancy under a different light- condition yourself into creating your tulpas by training yourself to react as someone other than yourself. Use classical conditioning to do stuff like possess and switch, perform mental exercise to visualize and impose (your mind's eye acts like a muscle- use it or lose it)

 

I'm not an expert on hypnosis, so my question is how is hypnosis different from self-conditioning, if it is at all?

 

I'm aware you can hypnotize yourself in unexpected ways, for instance your therapist making suggestions and you believing them, but does that mean once you break out of the trance the effect ends? Or is that not how it works?

Edited February 8, 2021 by Ranger

[Zen 禅]

It's my understanding that it is essentially not different from self-conditioning. Hypnosis (the practice, not the state) is just guided visualization, following by a series of suggestions to deepen the trance state, then a payload suggestion or suggestions when you're most vulnerable to them, at your most relaxed and accepting.

 

The first state is literally just relaxation/meditation, and then the second is achieving a measure of dissociation, such as by trying to visualize a wonderland and tulpa for example for a fair bit of time. The state your brain is in is essentially the same, the only difference is the method you use to reach them, with a hypnotist up until that point basically telling you relax and imagine various things. Hypnosis also tends to feel somewhat deeper because you are allowing yourself to passively visualize whatever you are told, rather than actively trying to, which naturally seems to make you more suggestible. It's also a mistake to think you're immune to suggestion in the first state - you're not. It's still a suggestible state, you're just more resistant to it than in the deeper state. I'd say most of the standard work of tulpamancy is done in that first state, and so it qualifies as weak hypnosis in a sense. With some of the more active stuff being only slightly off "full hypnosis" in practice.

 

Usually after that second stage is when a hypnotist would then read out a suggestion/script to you. The notable thing I'd say about the payloads, is that they (and the previous steps too) are fundamentally linked with visualization and do not actually work very well at all if they aren't. For example, you may suggest to someone that they are building a tulpa, whilst having them visualize the feel of running their hand along their body and vividly describing the texture of their skin (which can cause hallucinations at this "depth"). If you don't describe the what they feel and see like that, the suggestion doesn't work as well - Deep trance or otherwise. You can't just say "You've got a tulpa now.", it has to be something along the lines of "You may start to notice them subtly twitch and animate their new body, showing signs of awareness." so to speak, and then usually repeated in different forms to get across the impression that they are fully real and present.

Edited February 9, 2021 by ZenAndMika