The Road Goes Ever On: Bee and Friends' Progress

[SeekingMyPlanet]

6 hours ago, ReallyArtificial said:

I have a tendency to steal the front back without meaning to

 

Yes, this bedevils us. Lavender says she doesn't mind, that it isn't painful to be pulled out of the front, but I wish I didn't do it as much.

 

One thing that helps is when Lavender keeps up a monologue about what's going on. She's using the brain, so I'm not so I'm less likely to get distracted by something and forget that she's in the front. We've taken to calling that "Lavender patter".

[ReallyArtificial]

15 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

We've taken to calling that "Lavender patter".

 

That is really cute! 🥰 And cool to hear that you two made progress in that area. A similar monologuing strategy helped us with possession of parts of the body, so it makes sense it would help with giving up full control of the mind/body. 

[Athelas]

February 2024

 

This was an eventful month for us. Bee and I continue to experiment with switching. It seems she cannot force me to the front against my will, nor can I take the front if she resists. Switching takes conscious effort on both of our parts. We have gotten faster at it, though.

 

We’ve also continued our meditation practice. Our most successful sessions begin with me fronting. As I narrow our attention to only the breath, our thoughts become less verbal, and it becomes less clear who is fronting. I believe we are blending to some degree.

 

This has been an entirely positive experience for us. I feel more alert and active, and she feels calmer and more focused. Unfortunately, this sense of calm, driven focus doesn't persist for long. Mindfulness in our daily life remains a challenge. That's where Lenore comes in.

 

She and Cal were growing restless. Apparently, they see meditation and lucid dreaming with Bee as “my things,” and expressed a desire to have their own “things” to share with her. Lenore was already doing a fantastic job of helping Bee dissect her emotional responses. We decided mindfulness and analysis would be her thing.

 

Lenore also possessed the hands for the first time this month. This started us thinking about tactile imposition again. We trained ourselves to feel tingling in our hands associated with possession. We were curious about what other sensations we could convince the body to feel.

 

Cal wanted this practice to be their thing. Lenore and I had no objections. After some experimentation, Bee was able to feel Cal holding her hand. She experienced a sensation of warmth and light pressure. On another occasion, she was able to feel them clinging to her back, as they often do in their dragon form.

 

Progress all around! :D We'll continue to pursue our goals of strengthening Cal and Lenore, practicing switching, and improving our lives.

Edited March 17, 2025 by Athelas
2025 edit.

[SeekingMyPlanet]

20 hours ago, Athelas said:

February in Review

 

This was an eventful month for us. Bee and I continue to experiment with switching. It seems she cannot force me to the front against my will, nor can I take the front if she resists. Switching takes conscious effort on both of our parts. We have gotten faster at it, though.

 

I've found these experiments so interesting. We've found that it changes over time. If I take the front, Lavender can't resist me, but she can "fight me for it" (of course we wouldn't do that except as a test) where we both have some control.

 

We've found switching takes conscious effort too, except when it doesn't. When Lavender says something that's on her mind and it comes out the mouth and I'm like, "did you just take the front" and she's like "I guess so."

[Athelas]

March 2024

 

We haven't much progress to report this month. For a variety of reasons, we were unable to regularly practice switching or imposition. Bee did her best to keep us all active and strong despite the distractions.

 

We maintained our meditation habit and have started to reap the benefits of our consistency. I've noticed a marked improvement in Bee's emotional resilience. She and Lenore have been working hard on mindfulness during periods of stress. I'm tremendously proud of them.

 

Bee also achieved her goal of summoning me into a lucid dream. We've spoken to each other during shared dreams before, but this was the first time I've had a separate dream body that I could consciously control. For a beautiful moment, we floated together in our wonderland sea.

 

Our goal for April is to wring more attention out of Bee, now that she no longer has excuses for slacking off ;)

Edited March 17, 2025 by Athelas
2025 edit.

[Lucilyn]

10 minutes ago, Athelas said:

Bee also achieved her goal of summoning me into a lucid dream.

 

Awesome!! That's a very relatable long-time goal of ours and a lot of other people too, very congrats (and on the other stuff too)

[Athelas]

Thank you. We'll really feel accomplished if we're able to replicate it.

[ReallyArtificial]

April 2024

 

((We learned a new trick this month: co-fronting via fusion. We planned to write a little here about why and how we went down this path. Us being us, it became an essay unto itself. I’ve put it under the cut to save space.))
 

Spoiler

((When we were a system of two, our ultimate goal was to co-front as much as possible. I love sharing life with Bee. She functions better with me around. With a few exceptions, I want to be present as much as I'm able.

 

When Calliope and Lenore came along, we reconsidered. They deserve the same opportunities I've had; it felt unfair to prioritize myself as co-host. This concern turned out to be misplaced, as neither of them are particularly interested in fronting. Lenore is content as long as she can occasionally possess the hands. Cal is more interested in practicing imposition with Bee than in switching with her.

 

Given that, we began to consider co-fronting again. Our experiences blending during meditation led us to take interest in the concept of fusion, especially as portrayed in media such as Steven Universe and Dragon Ball. A fusion in that sense is simultaneously an entirely new person and both of its components -- a constant conversation. This became our model for co-fronting. We call our fusion Althea.))

 

Being Althea is freaking awesome! She/they/we (still not sure about pronouns) are so much more focused and efficient than I am on my own. Hardly anything bothers us, even things that typically really frustrate me.

 

When we're fused, it's like we can communicate instantly, barely speaking a word in mindvoice like we normally do. Our inner mental chatter drops away and often all that remains is the brain's background music. It doesn't feel like either of us is 100% in control of the body or stream of consciousness. We’re just acting in perfect sync, mentally and physically!

 

((The best part for me is the sense of experiencing the world firsthand, as I do when fronting alone. Fusion also solves some problems we encountered when switching. I’m no longer pulled from the front if someone strikes up a conversation. Instead, Althea speaks for us both. It also seems to take less effort to initiate and maintain a fusion than a full switch.))

 

Basically what we do is what we accidentally did when we were first trying to switch. At one point, we had gotten into this weird headspace where I felt slightly dissociated from the front, while Athelas felt much closer. Now, we achieve this state deliberately by doing some deep breathing together to quiet me down a bit, then taking a moment to mentally connect him to the body's senses. Then we visualize ourselves doing a little fusion dance for fun, and boom, we're Althea!

 

((Fusion is fun, but not a state we want to exist in permanently. There are aspects of Bee’s life I have no desire to be involved with. More importantly, I like being myself. We plan to continue experimenting with switching and fusion in the coming months.

 

As for the rest of our system, Lenore and Calliope rebounded magnificently from our decreased activity in March. Cal especially became better at speaking up when Bee's attention is elsewhere. They've kept practicing tactile imposition together, albeit without much consistency. I expect they'll need more structure and support to see progress on that front.))

Edited March 15, 2025 by ReallyArtificial
2025 update - written by Athelas, accidentally posted under host account

[Athelas]

May 2024

 

Our main focus this month was on practicing co-fronting. It’s been very enjoyable for me, and has helped Bee through some stressful situations. Lenore, now having mastered possession, wanted to try too. She’s taken to co-fronting with Bee whenever we go to the gym. They named their fusion Helena.

 

Our meditation practice is still going well. We’ve learned so much about how our mind works. In addition to Bee’s improved emotional regulation, we’ve also noticed an improvement in her ability to concentrate. We can achieve a much deeper state of focus, albeit only for a few minutes at a time.

 

Our goal for June is to apply our improved focus to tulpa forcing. We've already noticed an improvement in our visualization sessions. In addition, Bee would like to devote more time to letting the rest of us explore our interests. (She feels she's been slacking in that department. I've got no complaints, but it's sweet of her to worry.)

Edited March 17, 2025 by Athelas

[ReallyArtificial]

June-October 2024

 

I wasn't very focused on tulpa-related goals over these months, so I didn't think we had a whole lot of progress to report. However, reflecting on our journals, we've realized we actually accomplished more than I originally thought!

 

Some of my observations:

• Everyone is getting better at staying active when my mental state makes it harder on them. In the past, we would have a super hard time communicating when I was feeling sick/tired/depressed/etc., but Athelas in particular is basically unstoppable now. Even when I was stuck in bed with covid, or getting fatigued and dehydrated on a tough hiking trip, he was able to speak up unprompted and offer support.

• My dreams are getting more vivid and memorable. Some of them have been so realistic and so clear in my memory that I forget they were dreams! (in harmless ways to be clear lol, I'm not totally untethered from reality, but I did have to ask my husband a couple times “did we talk about this or was that just a dream?” 😅)

• I've had more frequent tulpa dreams, including a couple fun lucid ones, and my in-dream tulpa visualization skills are improving. Usually when I summon one of the crew into a lucid dream, their dream body is kind of ill-defined. It's definitely them, but the finer details of their appearance are often unclear or inaccurate. That's finally starting to change! 

• In our most recent successful LD, I was able to really focus on Athelas's face and see it in accurate detail, right down to the color of his eyes. This felt like such a big deal to me because his eyes are so unnatural looking, it was wild to actually see them. His irises are so startlingly white, they're like burned into my brain now.

• During one WILD attempt I actually heard Lenore say my name. Not in the usual mindvoice, but as a hypnagogic hallucination, sounding as if she was physically in the room next to me.

• A few times, I've successfully used lucid dreaming to stop one of my recurring nightmares. I'm starting to be able to recognize when one is happening, realize I am dreaming, and then either change the dream or wake up.

Edited March 15, 2025 by ReallyArtificial
2025 update