When switching with your tulpa, do you stay in the back of the mind or do you go to headspace?

[Zeno]

Thorn, the host here.

For some stupid reason I always thought that switching while the tulpamancer goes to the back of the mind or to headspace were two very different practices. Apparently, it's just something that depends per system.

 

When you switch with your tulpa, do you stay in the back of the mind, not really finding yourself in any specific space, or do you go to headspace?

 

This also made me wonder about how much control the tulpamancer still has when they are switched with the tulpa. So if you can, please elaborate on that too!

[ChloeBee]

Hello, host here!

 

From what I've seen the subjective experience of switching varies greatly from system to system. Speaking for myself, when Simmie switches in I stay very much active. In fact, sometimes I think even more because I'm not bothered with the moment-to-moment decisions about where my body is going and such because Simmie is taking care of that. This can be a bit of a problem, however, and Simmie often gets annoyed that I won't just be quiet and go to the back like I'm supposed to. I try but it's very difficult, my mind is overactive much of the time. I haven't learned how to shut off, really. I've managed it a couple times but it's been a while.

 

There are definitely some hosts who are able to go completely dormant with ease while their tulpa is switched in. In order to do this, you have to have 100% trust in your tulpa to be able to let go of that control. I do indeed trust Simmie 100% but just trust isn't enough, it's a practiced skill that I haven't mastered yet. But others can do it, and they can tell you what that's like if they want to. In almost all cases, a 'mancer will be able to switch back in without resistance from the tulpa if the mind is of reasonable mental health. Simmie has not once resisted returning to the back or moving aside when I've asked her to.

[GrayTheCat]

When I switch out, I feel like I become a program of the mind. I'm reduced to my thoughts, any feeling sensations are now Ranger's and not mine. I am basically just like a tulpa- If Ranger forgets about me I disappear, I'm dependent on her to keep me around, etc.

 

When I go inactive, I just go dormant. I can use my form in wonderland, but Ranger would have to either be talking to me or wonderlanding with me.

 

Some systems believe their tulpas go to a self-sustaining wonderland or somehow they are self-sustaining themselves. You may also hear about "wonderland switching", which is this idea tulpas can switch out to and then hang out in wonderland outside of the host's awareness. This has been labeled as parallel processing and it's debatable if this is really possible or not. Ranger is very curious about this experience and would like to recreate it herself, but we have not achieved anything like this yet. As a side note, one system told us the wonderland was really just a place to go to, otherwise a tulpa would have to sit around stuck in a void.

[Luminesce]

The switching experience may differ by system, although it is defined relatively as the host basically entering the same state their tulpa(s) normally is, and the tulpa having the same control, awareness and general association with the body and mind that the host normally does. The trick in that definition though, is that the actual experience of a tulpa differs from system to system. Because that differs, switching also necessarily differs.

 

For us, my tulpas (or me switched out) are only active when consciously held in mind by the one switched in, and when attention is fully completely off of them (not even some background awareness), they become "inactive" meaning they're basically gone until pulled back up by consciousness. Since that's how it is for my tulpas, it's how it is for me when switched out too.

 

While I don't know what to say about the base model of tulpas' existing - it may well depend on individuals' brains more than belief - I will say that even in our model, you can still train tulpa activity persistence as a skill, as well as the ability for them to bring themselves to consciousness. While I can't see them ever remaining conscious 24/7 without the fronter's intent, I'm 100% sure we could increase the resistance to them falling out of consciousness/being active, and I'm also sure you can train your brain to bring them up automatically at whatever times (like when they might want to comment on something). These are maybe a little hard to train since I can't think of particularly easy to follow instructions on such, but they're still skills that can be trained for sure.

 

And then, some systems claim their tulpas are just always active, often including when the host isn't aware of them. I basically just don't believe any of those experiences are what they seem, I believe there's various kinds of mental trickery at play

But who knows, maybe some people's brains really work like that. If so, I also don't see it being learnable, but I am a huge proponent for most tulpamancy skills having practically no skill ceilings, so while I don't believe in parallel processing or tulpas being active without the fronter consciously knowing, I fully believe it's possibly for multitasking (or a couple other similar functions of the brain) to be trained to the point of being effectively-parallel-processing, and I believe you can train your brain to basically keep your tulpas fully active at all times that could possibly be relevant for them to be active (might as well call it 24/7), including background-awareness (not-really-thinking-about them, but still not "not conscious of them")

Edited July 19, 2022 by Luminesce

[Glaurung26]

I think it's pretty similar with me to Phil (September13). I like to use the metaphor of switching car seats. Or more aptly pilot/co-pilot seats. I'm still there and have to restrain myself from interfering too much so Jaina can have her space. 

[Guest]

Any of the following positions:

 

Co-front - front or back seat

Imposed - out of body 

Watcher - watching and listening with no reaction or emotional involvement 

Headspace - watching, listening, reacting and interacting 

Way back - in headspace but totally dissociated even to whatever is going on in front

Wonderland - either active forced or not thought of but still active 

Dormant - as if I don't exist aka the void or deep dreamless sleep.

 

[Moon Voilo]

Moon: I'm very interested to see how switching will be for my system, considering we are only partially a tulpamancy system, most of our headmates are not tulpas. I think what will happen is that my host goes into headspace, but we'll see.

 

Also considering this came up in the discussion I am definitely still active in headspace without my host paying attention to me, usually my host's mind is elsewhere and I'm just chilling in headspace doing whatever really.