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Parts of a Plurality Viewpoint


Ranger

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(edited)

While talking to Lolcery/mockwriter and Lynn, my mentees, they asked what viewpoint they have. After going over a broad overview of different points of view I knew about, I decided to break down the parts of a viewpoint. I realized doing this was actually pretty interesting and I'm curious how you guys would list out the essential parts of what makes up someone's viewpoint on plurality.

 


 

I have the following rough ideas that I revised a bit for this thread. I (currently) believe the main "ingredients" for the "secret sauce" of a viewpoint are the following:

 

1) What do you think makes a headmate different from you, a non-headmate, etc. (separation)

2) What power dynamics do you have as a system (who gets say in what)

3) What are the goals each headmate has for their life in-system (priorities)

4) How do you believe headmates are created (beliefs)

5) How do you believe other people's headmates work (generalization vs uniqueness)

 

I don't think there is a correct answer for each of these questions and there shouldn't be. I think all of these pieces are part of what makes one person's opinion on tulpamancy unique.

 

This isn't set in stone either. I doubt I covered every critical factor in this very short list. Plus, there may be future factors that influence a viewpoint we can't predict yet.

 

I should point out that a point of view does not guarantee whether or not someone will fake claim or not. Any given viewpoint is capable of supporting the idea other people have real headmates. For example, one can have a very general or uniform view of plurality and be fine with all headmates because they fit their generalization. Alternatively, the viewpoint may not support everyone has real headmates, but that doesn't guarantee someone will be hostile about it. For example, I personally don't always believe someone has what I personally believe to be real headmates. However, I also believe my opinion doesn't really matter because headmates can change over time and sharing that information won't help them. Ultimately, I think it's a bad to assume a viewpoint must be bad because it could lead to fake claiming when viewpoints don't guarantee that in the first place.

 

To go over a few examples of 1-5 for kicks and giggles:

 

Spoiler

1) What do you think makes a headmate different from you, a non-headmate, etc. (separation)

 

  • Do headmates have their own stream of consciousness or not?
  • Do headmates have the ability to exist outside of your awareness?
  • Can headmates have their own memories inaccessible from one another?
  • Are headmates connected yet ultimately capable of identifying as individuals?
  • Are headmates their own people?
  • Can a headmate be less of a person than another headmate?
  • Are headmates imaginary friends?
  • Is identity a massive illusion?
  • Is everything in your head you or not?

 

2) What power dynamics do you have as a system (who gets say in what)

 

  • Does everyone have equal say in everything, including interactions outside of head space?
  • Is plurality a partnership?
  • Does the headmate have less say in some areas but more say in other areas? (Your headmate may tell you or get you to eat more healthy food, but they don't say anything on how you handle your job)
  • Do headmates enjoy the ride of life and not question the driver?

 

3) What are the goals each headmate has for their life in-system (priorities)

 

  • Do headmates value their individualism?
  • Do headmates value their in-the-moment experience?
  • Do headmates focus on their host or the primary personality if one exists?
  • Do headmates have a purpose?
  • Do headmates have any short or long term goals?
  • Do headmates focus on happiness?

 

4) How do you believe headmates are created (beliefs)

 

  • "Sentience from the start" vs sentience comes later
  • How a system defines vocality
  • What makes an alter, tulpa, soulbond, gateway member, endogenic headmate, etc. different or the same?
  • Traumatic plurality vs non-traumatic plurality
  • Metaphysical beliefs vs psychological beliefs

 

5) How do you believe other people's headmates work (generalization vs uniqueness)

 

  • All switching is the same even though people describe it differently vs there are different types of switching
  • "One size fits all" philosophy
  • Everyone's personal experience with tulpamancy is inherently unique
  • Language fails to describe what people experience because it cannot accurately convey uniqueness (or lack thereof)

 

Edited by Ranger

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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(edited)

I can pinch in my two cents on the matter. I'm Mel, have two muses called Martina and Erika, as well as several soulbound characters that arose from my creative endeavors.

 

19 hours ago, Ranger said:

1) What do you think makes a headmate different from you, a non-headmate, etc.?

  • Do headmates have the ability to exist outside of your awareness?
  • Is everything in your head you or not?
  • Are headmates imaginary friends?

That I'm the original owner of the physical body. I think that's a good enough reason. As for the sub-questions, 'egregores' and more notably 'godforms' are thoughtforms that allegedly surprass the boundaries of the individual's minds, however if you ask me, I don't think they do. Dig deep enough and you'll find that no two people who believe in the same god have a 1:1 matching idea of it. Which is why we have so many branches of Christianity. That being said though, I'm also believe in a 'not seeing the forest from the tree' type situation. From what I've gathered in Christianity for instance, you don't directly talk to God by yourself, but through the Holy Spirit, which is basically a thoughtform acting as a proxy. If there are higher beings and they can only communicate with us in a way that we percieve it unconsciously, then we will need a thoughtform like that to do so. You may never know for sure whether your companion is an agent of a higher being or not.

 

And lastly... heh, there is a notion - a copium if you will - around the tulpa (and other) communities that 'nooo, they're not imaginary friends, w-we are more advanced' or something. Certain studies (and my anecdotes) however found that often times children don't actually puppeteer their imaginary friends around either, rather they are fully autonomous, self-aware entities that are merely compliant... or not. In that sense, 'imaginary friends' are more like 'illusiory friends' rather, but, you know, semantics.

 

19 hours ago, Ranger said:

2) What power dynamics do you have as a system (who gets say in what)

  • Is plurality a partnership?
  • Does the headmate have less say in some areas but more say in other areas?

Trust me if you don't learn to work together, you're in for a hell of a ride. Ask all the people in the old Burning Times who externalized their addictions into demons and end up feeling even less in control of them, which would eventually do make them lose control. This is what I think is the most important thing you have to keep in mind, and what has helped me with Erika: you are in control*. You might feel you're not, you might feel doubtful of yourself, but you need to remember that the body, the brain your mind belongs to that houses these forms is yours. I could have kept the name of my spear weilding bunny character 'Elizabeth' if I wanted to no matter how much she objected to it, but that would have felt unfitting and forced every time I saw it. So I let her have Elza like she wanted regardless of the Frozen connections. Same with the other bunnies, Poppy, Sariel, Recca and Rita, other soulbond characters who now basically 'write themselves'.

 

Co-operate, but be the leader.

* may not apply if plurality comes from trauma

 

19 hours ago, Ranger said:

3) What are the goals each headmate has for their life in-system (priorities)

Martina and Erika are my muses. Their purpose is what you'd expect from one: they come in and bash me over the head with a 2-5kg cast iron frying pan with the word 'IDEA' on top occassionally until I do something about it. Martina's are generally more refined, gradiose but solid while Erika's are more intrusive, depraved but fleeting. They do the world-building and character development and storyline, I do the... everything else. Often they appear in my lucid dreams and in the case of Erika when she arrived, turn them into a nightmare.

 

As for soulbonds or other characters that have 'come to life' from the constant writing or world-building, they mainly reside in their own worlds and do not interact with me or my muses. Exceptions sometimes occur though, namely every time Recca suffers from an unfortunate event there is a distinct 'I hate you' type of feeling I get from her, or the time when I found Rita by a waterfall in a lucid dream and we had a bit of a talk with me finding out she likes painting.

 

Dreams in general are the most common way I communicate with both my muses and my characters.

Edited by Mel Syreth
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(edited)
19 hours ago, Ranger said:

4) How do you believe headmates are created (beliefs)

  • What makes an alter, tulpa, soulbond, gateway member, endogenic headmate, etc. different or the same?
  • Traumatic plurality vs non-traumatic plurality
  • Metaphysical beliefs vs psychological beliefs

Alright, so, quick rundown because I'm writing this the second time.

Your mind has two regions: the conscious - things you are aware of doing or thinking about on your own will - and subconscious - things you do or think of not by your own will. If you close your eyes and think of an apple, you will probably see something faint resembling an apple in the blackness. That's called an 'imagination'. Or you might go starving in the desert for two days and do the same but without consciously wanting to think of an apple, or take some sort of substance and see one the same. That's a 'hallucination'. Now, your brain has a few neat tricks to save brainpower too. One is 'habituation', where you do something so many times your brain does it automatically and you essentially will have to focus on NOT doing it. The second is similar, called 'linking', where if you do something consciously and your subconscious adds something else to it involuntarily. #1 is responsible for things like you driving without looking at the gears or typing without watching the keyboard. #2 is responsible for hearing the words '-body once told me' every time you see someone kick a door in.

 

This means if you, say, start willingly and regularly thinking about an apple every time you go to sleep, do it for two-three-four months you might find yourself seeing apples in the bed even though you do not want to. This is not limited to just your 'mind's eye', but all other senses meaning you can imagine hearing, smelling, feeling or even tasting things, and turn all of those into a habit you do subconsciously. But still we only have a thoughtform, not an actual personality. Well, for that one there is a couple things you can do. You can take something your subconscious already has that you are aware of and link the appearance to that (spirit animals, fylgia, hamingja), or you can develop an entirely separate entity by asking and answering questions like 'what they'd do in this situation?' or 'what they'd prefer from these things?'. You guessed it, we'll be pushing this entire process into the subconscious into a habit until the answers come so easily and fast it will feel like the entitiy has a life on their own (soulbonds, tulpas). Mix and match to your liking.

 

It's actually not that difficult for the brain to do, even a child can do it (imaginary friends). Sometimes the mind even does it a snap to prevent further damage to itself which is how you end up with illnesses like D.I.D. or shizophrenia. That is not to say these are all equals, again, the voluntary forfeiture of this versus the involuntary loss of control is a huge differentiating factor, but in their core, they are made of the same cloth.

 

They are all externalizations of parts of our subconscious.

19 hours ago, Ranger said:

5) How do you believe other people's headmates work (generalization vs uniqueness)

  • Everyone's personal experience with tulpamancy is inherently unique
  • Language fails to describe what people experience because it cannot accurately convey uniqueness (or lack thereof)

Once you realize this, you will start to see that different cultures across the world throughout history have been all doing something similar that we do, and they had their own explanations and their own reasons. Nordic vikings turned their ancestral wisdom into 'hamingja' and their primal animalistic instict into an animalistic spirit called 'fylgja', both recognized as parts of the self. Greek artists credited their inspiration to 'muses'. And tibetan monks created their own 'sprul-pa' as a means of spiritual awareness and guidance. Others externalized their addictions and other bad habits into 'demons', 'succubi', 'imps' or other malicious entities. Some practices even have direct correlation to what we do. What we call 'deviation' is closer to daemians' 'settling', or finding one's 'spirit animal' in indeginous tribes.

 

I think it's important to differentiate these practices based on not (mainly) their end result, but their methodology, culture and their goals. Which is why I don't prefer vague meta-meta-definitions such as ' x-genic' 'systems' and call my muses muses. Everybody's experiences are different, so are everybody's motives, again, it's heavily reliant on an individual's subconscious. Tulpa.info generally looks for method first, but I feel like one does better when searching for their 'madness' instead, if that makes sense.

Edited by Mel Syreth
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