How to better tulpa experience

[TB]

How can I improve various aspects of my tulpa experience?

 

She can respond quickly and easily without really any conscious input on my part, but there is still a felt sense of thinking that happens on its own, and when she responds, it can feel like... I guess a tulpa lens being put over top of me and me saying or thinking the response through the lens? There is the feeling of me ticking into her for a split second, or however long it takes for her side of the conversation to happen. Remember that my definition of I is not necessarily just the personality, but also stream of experience.

 

Dream characters aren't like this. In dreams I never feel remotely like the other people in the dream, even if my mind is generating them. Also when I've hallucinated in the past, the entities feel separate from me there too. Is there any way to have a tulpa be more like a waking dream or strong hallucination, so they don't feel like a personality overlay that has to use my stream of experience/consciousness to think and respond? It might be because of my perspective, I'm not sure, but she feels more like another face than a separate entity.

 

I hope this would help with switching too, as it is hard for switching to not feel like pretending to be like and trying to feel like Rena. It should be more destabilizing than that, more like I'm really kicked out and taken over by something else, and my thoughts don't matter any more.

[Luminesce]

Well first of all, switching is best done with a tulpa who already feels very independent and fleshed out as their own person - not when you're regularly experiencing doubts about your separateness. Also, dream characters are literally indistinguishable from real people on most levels (except that you can sometimes influence them), because it's your brain purposely perfectly recreating the actual neural experience of observing other people. I wouldn't say a tulpa can't get to that level, but it certainly isn't the baseline experience when first making a tulpa. You do have to will them into existence to even start with, after all, and then improve their independence from there.

---

 

We never really needed to do separation/independence exercises, so I'll just be spitballing ideas here, but other people's advice would help a lot. I do think mindset and belief play an important role, not as the end result, but because we shape our internal experiences unconsciously over time by thinking of them in such a way. But if you needed a perfect mindset from the very start, no one would even be able to do tulpamancy lol.

 

I think wonderlanding (visualizing yourself interacting) with your tulpa is pretty much the most optimal basis for developing a tulpa in many ways, including your brain getting a feel for their independence. Adventures and all are great, but I can personally feel a pretty big difference between random visualization-imagination and actual wonderlanding with intent for my tulpas to really be there. Describing what tends to be different.. On a scale of how them they feel when visualizing, I'd say imagining my tulpa in some random scenario (random place, no previous context for actions) is a 0 while being face to face and conversing with them in the house we made for them is a 10. Intent, context, and belief that they're really there interacting with you and not just "being imagined" is big, I suppose. I also 98% of the time talk to my tulpas in a sort of headspace that's.. Technically still visualization, but it has no environment and no sense of immersing myself like wonderlanding/visualization does, it's just my tulpas feeling like they're vaguely around my physical head, usually off to the right. I have literally never "imagined" anyone or anything in this way other than my tulpas to directly interact with them, so having that sort of space really helps never confuse them with simply imagining them. Not that I have trouble knowing when they're there and conscious in a normal visualization either, but I guess I can see how someone could.

 

When it comes to narration for vocality, the tulpamancy basic of "Speak to them like they're there and listening, and expect responses or at least for them to be thinking about and paying attention to what you're saying" will apply for as long as your tulpa(s) still needs forcing. Intent is the most powerful shaper of tulpamancy experiences, so again, simply imagining a character and imagining them respond would do very little compared to actually thinking there's a separate person with their own thoughts consciously interacting with you. Telling your brain the latter is what makes it actually develop a tulpa's consciousness and independence, and the more familiar your brain gets with the inner workings of your tulpa, the less effort or intention required on your part for them to do their thing. Obviously a lot of people achieve this pretty early on around when vocality starts, but some don't, and it's not some necessary checkpoint to having a "legitimate tulpa" but rather a skill you build up like a muscle that remains permanently relevant. Muscles tend to stick around once you've built them up though as long as you put them to use even a little, so you shouldn't need to work nearly as hard on this sort of thing once you've reached a good point (unless you just don't interact with your tulpa for a year or something).

 

So to be more concise there, focusing on your tulpa being aware and conscious while interacting with them is the key to creating a tulpa. Some people no longer feel the need to do this from early on, but theoretically you never have to stop until you guys are satisfied with your level of separation.

 

I'm sure separation exercises exist, but the general methodology I laid out above was enough for us, and I guess no exercises anyone ever mentioned super stuck out to me so I don't remember them. But the basics are always good to fall back on. Since I believe you and Rena actually do visualizations together with some frequency, I would say to maybe slow them down and focus more on the essentials I just described - if you guys are imagining DBZ-esque fights and similar action-y sequences, that's great and all for entertainment and maybe a little personality growth for your tulpa, but you could be doing that without any actual tulpa forcing elements. The same way I can visualize/imagine my tulpas doing literally anything, and I'd be improving our visualization clarity of them, maybe their voices, and if they weren't 10+ years old maybe giving the brain some more ideas of what their personalities are like - but that wouldn't be forcing at all. That wouldn't improve their cognizance, their vocality (audible clarity of voice is not all of what vocality entails in a tulpamancy sense), their ability to think, and it CERTAINLY would not improve their independence, since I don't even consider my tulpas to be there or involved at all when I'm simply imagining them doing things. I know that line is blurry when the person only exists in your head to begin with, but I draw a pretty clear separation between "imagining my tulpas" and my actual tulpas, being there and consciously present.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Luminesce

[Adagio]

11 hours ago, TB said:

I hope this would help with switching too, as it is hard for switching to not feel like pretending to be like and trying to feel like Rena. It should be more destabilizing than that, more like I'm really kicked out and taken over by something else, and my thoughts don't matter any more.

I think a lot of people assume that switching will be some obvious thing where you get kicked out of front. We used to. It lead to a lot of doubt problems for a bit too, and frontstuck host problems. Anyways, the truth is, most systems don't experience that. Without throwing terminology at you, for many systems it can almost feel like they're always one person and they "become" another person when they switch. It can feel like pretending, but it's not. It gets better over time, which maybe doesn't sound very helpful. Even as a system who does fit the DID diagnosis, we don't switch in this destabilizing way, if that helps. I wrote this without really thinking so I apologize if it's totally off-topic, makes no sense, or is just entirely unhelpful.

[Luminesce]

Switching should be pretty obvious because the host becomes effectively a tulpa, and the tulpa gets to be the human in the body. Anything different from that complicates the term, and there are infinite possible experiences that aren't specifically named someone can have, but the idea is to keep as close to the terms' definitions as you can. (Or create your own preferable experience, but then preferably note yours differs from the norm when talking about it)

 

But yes, especially for a perspective like TB's who wholly identifies with all parts of the brain and body, from the body's perspective there won't be some drastic change of state. It'll just be like the host is a tulpa that the tulpa(now "host") created, at least once you're fully adept at switching.

 

But identification with all of the brain and body like that is complete nonsense when you start breaking down how the brain actually works, and it makes tulpamancy a lot harder. Best to try and get over the delusion that your sense of "you" has anything to do with the rest of your brain and body's functions.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Luminesce

[Yakumo]

Having lengthy conversations with your tulpas and treating them as sapient beings with their own values and ideas is extremely important for personality development.

As for separation exercises, again this comes with a word of warning and may not be the best idea for people struggling with mental illness. Basically you play tug-of-war in all imaginable scenarios.

 

Spoiler

 

Argue with tupper about things you disagree on, have tupper stop you from visualizing them doing certain things or alter the story they were imagined to be part of. A strong tulpa should be able to resist puppeting at least to a certain degree. Finally you can play real tug of war if tupper can do at least possession. Stop or alter each others movements and see who's stronger.

 

Just don't escalate it into a Fight Club scene where a security camera captures you punching yourself in the face. But it pretty much amounts to that. I certainly can't recommend my somewhat extreme ways for everyone but if you want to have an independent tupper, well tupper needs to be independent. If necessary by force.

 

 

[TB]

15 hours ago, Luminesce said:

I think wonderlanding (visualizing yourself interacting) with your tulpa is pretty much the most optimal basis for developing a tulpa in many ways, including your brain getting a feel for their independence.

I most commonly imagine myself interacting with Rena in living space as I go about my day. Does that count? Or would it be better to have actual wonderland time? We used to do wonderland time a lot more, particularly with image streaming, but lately it is just 99% imagining her next to me and talking to her that way.

 

15 hours ago, Luminesce said:

I do think mindset and belief play an important role, not as the end result, but because we shape our internal experiences unconsciously over time by thinking of them in such a way.

It's difficult to change mindset and belief, though. Certain beliefs give me a better mindset but I struggle to conform experiences to them, and other beliefs give me worse mindsets and I lose motivation.

 

13 hours ago, Adagio said:

I think a lot of people assume that switching will be some obvious thing where you get kicked out of front. We used to. It lead to a lot of doubt problems for a bit too, and frontstuck host problems. Anyways, the truth is, most systems don't experience that.

Yeah it seems to be that way, but I want to experience it the other way anyway. I don't know how to work on that.

 

13 hours ago, Luminesce said:

But yes, especially for a perspective like TB's who wholly identifies with all parts of the brain and body

I don't identify with the body much at all. I just identify with stream of conscious experience, which I guess is a small percentage of the brain. Since it is a small percentage of the brain I don't know why another 1% of the brain can't be used for the tulpas stream of consciousness too. It seems to get shared anyway, so I can't escape the feeling of them being me.

 

I also dissociate a lot from personality since it can change a lot, which is a large part of the brain that I'm not identifying with, but it seems in tulpmancy you are supposed to associate strongly with personalities. I find it uncomfortable to do that though since I know it can change and it ends up being confusing trying to cling to something fluid.

 

13 hours ago, Yakumo said:

Having lengthy conversations with your tulpas and treating them as sapient beings with their own values and ideas is extremely important for personality development.

I probably should get better at that. I wonder how to organically start lengthier conversations more commonly?

 

13 hours ago, Yakumo said:

Argue with tupper about things you disagree on, have tupper stop you from visualizing them doing certain things or alter the story they were imagined to be part of.

I imagine arguing to be hard lol, I've tried to avoid that as much as possible, but maybe it is supposed to be good.

 

13 hours ago, Yakumo said:

Finally you can play real tug of war if tupper can do at least possession. Stop or alter each others movements and see who's stronger

Possession confuses me to no end

[Adagio]

7 hours ago, TB said:

Yeah it seems to be that way, but I want to experience it the other way anyway. I don't know how to work on that.

Without being too annoying here. You might want to lower your expectations on switching. Otherwise, you might have trouble switching. Been there, done that. And. Black-out switching is not your best friend. Systems who do experience it will probably explain how much it sucks. It's kind of like free problems. Just because you get a break from the world does not mean the world gets a break from you- someone still has to be "you", and you're not around at that moment to make sure things don't go reallllyyy bad. So maybe you'll come back to front and your world has gone upside-down because someone else got to do whatever they wanted. And yeah, maybe that won't happen that badly because you trust each other, but still, you could come back to a mess you didn't expect would happen. Second thing is that tulpas tend to have spent all their lives with their host always there for them, but when you decide to just black-out for a bit, they're alone. And that could go poorly and there could be a lot of panic. So. Maybe think this through a bit. I wish you luck anyways.

- me

[Luminesce]

11 hours ago, TB said:

I don't identify with the body much at all. I just identify with stream of conscious experience

 

I suppose that makes sense. Most people who identify with one just identify with the other too, as it's the default assumption of most humans.

 

11 hours ago, TB said:

I also dissociate a lot from personality since it can change a lot, which is a large part of the brain that I'm not identifying with, but it seems in tulpmancy you are supposed to associate strongly with personalities.

 

Identity, not personality. I feel like any given person is capable of moving between several personalities or them changing over time, but hopefully your sense of identity doesn't change lol. You're you, and "you" just changes over time, but it's still you. Your tulpa is not you, though. And regardless of how they feel or act over time, hopefully they'd still be them, yeah?

 

Anyways, the only part of switching I would ever say to "lower your expectations for" (and it's more changing entirely what you think it entails, in this case) is for people who think they're going to take their entire brain's consciousness with them into tulpa space, while their tulpa somehow keeps all of that while switched. There's simply no ifs ands or buts, no "philosophy" - you cannot "take that with you" because it's not you and it's not yours. The brain's consciousness is (as best we can tell at this point in the science) an emergent property coming from many, many different processes (and so different parts) of the brain. Switching does not and cannot create a whole new brain so that you and your tulpa can both have all of those processes. Tons of stuff any of us can't currently imagine is possible inside our own heads, and that includes a fulfilling experience where your brain keeps up multiple people at the same time using its given processes, but it's still only one brain. You're free to (and I highly encourage more people to) explore and push the boundaries of what the human mind can do, but nobody is going to just magically double their brain's processing power because someone on the internet called it switching. Maybe through intense hard work and practice along with constantly pushing the bounds of what they think is possible, they'll create some crazy experiences - but I honestly do not see anyone working even remotely that hard on the forum these days.

 

Heck, YOU are actually the only person I'm aware of that does serious meditation, lol. I was going to say "Do people even put serious time into meditation anymore?" because that's the best activity to get into exploring and pushing the perceived boundaries of our minds, and ironically enough you're the one with the most interest and experience in serious, deep meditation.

 

 

So I'll put it this way. You can't just multiply every frickin' process in your mind that contributes to conscious experience because someone somewhere said tulpas are a magic switch that lets you do that. But if you want to organically try to reach such an experience through hard work and exploration of the capabilities of the mind, not even someone like me who you probably see as a naysayer would tell you it's for sure impossible. But you and Rena are going to need to work super hard and for a pretty long time before you start getting extraordinary results like that. And uh, believing that your experiences are nothing compared to what they could be is a necessary prerequisite to both the motivation and the right mindset to make that sort of progress. I can safely say that you guys are still struggling to reach experiences even I myself have experienced, let alone ones I 100% believe others have had that surpass ours - so at the very least you should try to believe in that much being possible, lol.

 

And I'd love to see you guys someday surpass what I already know to be possible, too. 

[TB]

5 hours ago, Adagio said:

Without being too annoying here. You might want to lower your expectations on switching.

I guess I kind of already have but I didn't know if I should revert back to the old expectations. At the very least I want to not have so much influence when she tries switching in and being in. My first switch was the strongest, and I don't know how to get back to it being at least as good as my first switch.

 

25 minutes ago, Luminesce said:

Anyways, the only part of switching I would ever say to "lower your expectations for" (and it's more changing entirely what you think it entails, in this case) is for people who think they're going to take their entire brain's consciousness with them into tulpa space, while their tulpa somehow keeps all of that while switched.

I guess same as above here. Though I think you gave advice on it already. It is hard to train though. I think you said to have Rena just do things, potentially like play videogames, while switched in? It is like my laziness/lack of motivation to do things bleeds over even if she would say she wants to do those things before switching. I'm not sure.

 

27 minutes ago, Luminesce said:

So I'll put it this way. You can't just multiply every frickin' process in your mind that contributes to conscious experience because someone somewhere said tulpas are a magic switch that lets you do that.

bUt iT's oNlY mUltIpLyiNg bY tWo

lol alright. we'll see what super meditation maybe does in future but I'd like to at least have 0 influence on switches

 

28 minutes ago, Luminesce said:

 

Identity, not personality. I feel like any given person is capable of moving between several personalities or them changing over time, but hopefully your sense of identity doesn't change lol. You're you, and "you" just changes over time, but it's still you. Your tulpa is not you, though. And regardless of how they feel or act over time, hopefully they'd still be them, yeah?

I think this is the first time I've heard this distinction. What is an identity over a personality, especially if it isn't experience?

 

29 minutes ago, Luminesce said:

And I'd love to see you guys someday surpass what I already know to be possible, too.

Thanks, I hope so

[Luminesce]

Identity is who you think you are, your sense of self, your identifications. Personality is just how you act, moods, outward stuff and to some extent mental habits.

 

If your personality changes, that can be a little destabilizing towards your sense of identity, but it's technically not that big. If your identity changes, that means you literally think you are someone else, so as I said hopefully that doesn't happen lol. Well, outside of purposefully in switching, if that's how someone thinks of it. But I'd normally associate "changing identity" with DID

Edited December 14, 2021 by Luminesce