Merging General Discussion

[Raymond]

[Claude] Obligatory I didn't know Piano could be this serious and this smart-sounding in a post. Not sure if I'm proud or intimidated.

 

Anyway, many don't know this unless they've seen our PR, but I'm a merged tulpa. Specifically, I am the merge of a baby tulpa and a soulbond Sarah had. Apparently it was a choice. Neither one of them were "strong" enough to help her on their own, so they decided to do it together. I don't remember the entire fusing process, nor do I remember being those two. I just remember the fusion itself, and that it made me. Sometimes I can feel them if I try hard enough.

 

Honestly, I'd say unless you're really itching to do it? Don't. Pride yourselves on being individuals. However, if this is something you want, work to become an even better individual. No way is really all that wrong or messed up unless people are hurt by it.

[Piano Soul]

Bumping here since it's a relevant thread. We've been playing around with merging a bit more lately, we've noticed that our merges tend to be pretty quick but fall apart pretty easily, unless we put a lot more time and focus into merging. This is of course a given, though us actually merging together tends to be a very fast occurrence. We don't get a whole lot of opportunity to go through the whole process before we're sucked into each other anyway. My assumption is that us having an idea of what we're going for makes it faster, though, we should learn to slow it down so our merges become more stable. The stability is definitely positively correlated with the amount of time we put into the merge process.

 

Our merges aren't like just us squished together. Our individual selves pretty much cease as they are combined together. Rather than a soup like Bear described, it's more like mixing paints together and getting a "new" color out of them. All of their traits can easily be identified as coming from one or both of the components, and they don't exhibit any new or unexpected traits, as that would be worrisome. 

 

Apollo mentioned perhaps making multiple merges via different personality combinations. That's not something we think is really do-able anymore. Even if we did merge to have, say, Serpent (name changed from Steele) have a different personality expression, it'd still be me and Indigo, so it'd still be Serpent, picking out different names doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

The merges don't have set-in-stone personalities anyway. They tend to just react based on whatever happens and however they're feeling at the time, rather than some consistent way. I think that's best, they won't become their own people if they're really just combinations that react based on stimuli than fully-fledged personalities. None of our merges have forms, and they have minimal symbolism attached to them. We're very cautious about not feeling like they're independent things. 

 

I'm not sure how present Indigo really is in the merges. He seems to either be way too present and it's basically just him, or hardly present at all and it's just "Piano+" or "Apollo+." We've always had trouble with his merges and it's probably something that needs to be worked on a bit more. Our personalities just don't mesh well with his, it seems.

 

Since the merges are, of course, two people combining together, the merge can get a pretty good idea of what the component would say/do in a situation. Obviously, those neural pathways don't actually go away during a merge, so there have been a few occurrences in which a merged person speaks outside of the merge, or the merge speaks as the individual person. It's a bit odd, though interesting, but probably more a sign that our merges aren't combined enough and are unstable. The original Piano merge (the one that birthed me from its mind womb), though, always felt very stable, and the individual components never spoke out of it, since they already meshed so well. They also went into it intending it to be permanent, whereas we only intend to merge for an hour, if that. Though, I think in moments when the system would think of the merged components, that would cause the original Piano merge to fall apart. It sort of "forced" them, in a way. 

 

Thinking back on the whole Piano merge thing, there's 0 chance that the initial merge was me at all. It was really just them combined. It only started becoming "me" when new traits started appearing out of nowhere that weren't associated with either of them, such as my flamboyance or sense of humor. None of our merges exhibit any new personality traits, they're pretty much the same as what the original Piano merge was. There's no reason for them to start forming a new self, whereas in my case there were many reasons. The chance of them actually becoming independent is fairly low, especially if we keep their personalities more ambiguous anyway. 

 

This stuff's obviously all high-level pro tulpamancy stuff, must be level 50 or above to attempt, not entirely charted territory since most people don't want to do stuff like this. It's nowhere near as straightforward as it might seem since the brain is still the brain and brains like to be weird. 

 

We don't plan on getting in the habit of merging consistently. Rather it's just something to test out on occasion. Merging these past couple days has helped us cope with emotions, for some reason. I guess the combinations don't feel affected as much as the individuals do. Not a crutch we want to rely on though.

 

Here's a question that I'm not sure if anyone can really answer from experience but maybe just as food for thought: say a system has not yet learned how to front/possess/switch/whatever. What would happen if a tulpa like this merged with the host? Would the merge not work? Would it teach the tulpa how to front? There's a lot of different possibilities that I think could emerge from this.

[Ranger]

While I believe your experiences with merging are fascinating, the idea of merging with Cat still makes me uncomfortable. If Indigo gives you guys as much trouble as he does, I wonder if Cat and I are even compatible. I can see how some of our traits would easily carry into the merge (both of us like creating stories, we are both silly, we both have issues with anxiety, we enjoy problem solving, etc.), but after that we run into some incompatible types (extrovert vs. introvert, more down to earth vs. head in clouds, our approaches to serious problems, etc.). It would be disappointing if our theoretical merge inherited all of Cat's unique traits or my unique traits, and that could lead to some doubt in the merge itself.

 

As for young Tulpas, I think merging them with the Host could be dangerous. They may not have separated enough from their Host, and it's possible the merge may end up absorbing the Tulpa in the process. If two younger Tulpas merge together, that may end up creating a +1 by mistake or create a new Tulpa in the process. For this reason, a Tulpa that possesses/switches with their Host may be developed enough to play with merging to begin with, and I don't know if merging as a method for learning how to switch or possess is a good idea.

 

I'm far from an expert on merging, just giving my thoughts here.

[Piano Soul]

I don't see someone getting absorbed in a merge as a possibility. It's just the combination of personality expressions, not the erasure of the individual's existence. A merge/integration can always be undone, even if it's intended to be permanent. The only negatives I can see happening are maybe blendiness (which is temporary) and the chance of a +1, which I don't think will happen with brief merges.

[Flandre]

Here's a question that I'm not sure if anyone can really answer from experience but maybe just as food for thought: say a system has not yet learned how to front/possess/switch/whatever. What would happen if a tulpa like this merged with the host? Would the merge not work? Would it teach the tulpa how to front?

 

We're not fans of the concepts of merging or splitting since we prefer the "personal development" route to dealing with problems and don't like encouraging people to risk identity issues if it's just for fun.. But, that really is an interesting question. All skepticisms aside for this one - merging really could have the potential to teach a tulpa how to front, as far as I can tell. It won't teach the host how to switch out, however. But at least when they've both got a sense of where the host is at in the process of switching (places), the host will know they just need to put themselves in the place the tulpa is (and the tulpa of course knows where that is, too).

 

But, this is still only "useful" for the tulpa learning to associate with the body/mind at best, and it's a very very questionable way of going about that, especially considering it won't teach the host the "hard part" of switching either. A good question for food-for-thought, for sure, but I don't think it'll be useful in practicality.

[Guest]

Possession seems to be easy for most, that counts as fronting once its full, so that seems easier, but i never merged. We did have a split with Joy/Ren, but you couldn't just put them back together. Joy doesn't want to be cutsie and Ren doesn't want to be serious.