Ringgggg's somewhat-comprehensive foxgirl imposition log

[ringgggg]

I only post progress when I see it. Evidently, as of two days ago, I’ve started to realize just how much I’ve seen, for better or for worse. I’m glad to be back on track, and excited to share what I’ve taken away from my experiences so that you don’t screw up like I did.

Motivation is the keystone to imposition. Without it, you’ve got no fuel in the tank to travel to your destination. That’s why good habit-building skills are so important to take into account when first imposing, and it’s also why imposition felt so crappy for me for the past month and a half. 

Around the time of my last post, I started thinking more about what the future of my imposition would look like. I expected to have a similar trajectory to that of Breloomancer, who documented the start of her successes in a similar range of time. “This was the month,” I kept telling myself. I didn’t have any intention to predict things before they came to me, but I always felt myself gravitating back to that alluring belief. For the next month, that became my motivation. I didn’t think about effort as much; imposition practice became a braindead hustle to the “next big thing”. As a result, the quality and time of the average session began to deteriorate; 40 minutes on average dropped to 20, and I frequently found myself nodding off during sessions after having held off on imposition for the entire day.

Imagine my frustration when next to nothing happened for almost a month.

I kept on waiting for a sign. Every practice was just a countdown to a “breakthrough” that never happened rather than my previous motive of just imposing for the sake of imposing. Progress was prioritized over the process, and it made my effort fall through. In other words, I had my eyes on the scoreboard the entire time without realizing that I was losing the game. 

In my eventual realization, I began to analyze my motives behind imposition and how they compared to my big break back in August. What would past Ringgggg do? The answer was clear: I needed to thin my expectations. Evidently, there was a difference between telling myself that practice is going to be good, and simply wanting a good practice. The former suggests that a good practice is mandatory, while the latter shows a simple desire to have good a practice rather than it being a necessity. There’s no telling what’d happen in a typical session, even with the repeated action of mindsculpting, so having practice feel unpredictable lined up perfectly with how unpredictable it truly is.

Instead of trying to predict the future, I’d go at my own pace. That fixed my practicing habits instantly with a single shift in thought.

I told myself that I just wanted a long practice rather than having a specific time constraint. I ended up with a 40-minute session that day and am continuing to have sessions of similar length.

In the past, I kept frustratingly wanting visual noise to clump up when I focused hard. I diverted myself from that toxic belief and simply focused hard without any concrete expectations. That in particular created some really interesting results. 

Which brings me to my next point. The first few sessions I’ve had with the refined mindset felt noticeably different in quality. Some of that could be because impose earlier in the day, too, but whatever the case may be, there’s bound to be momentum. 

Flashback to two days ago. I decided to capitalize on this newfound improvement and put more effort into my focus.
 

Positioning my hand as if I had been holding a golf ball, I focused hard on making the noise more opaque and solid; I concentrated it into an imaginary, golf ball-sized sphere that fit perfectly in my hand. My focus persisted until the noise was flashing all on its own, and for a moment, the sphere was almost as vivid as anything else! I proudly mark this as the number 2 cool happening in imposition.

It seemed to have a similar feel as the slightly whiter noise that is currently the norm for imposed visuals. The noise was “solidified” and more vivid around the boundaries, while the middle portion of the sphere emitted a weaker noise gradient. It dissolved after around 3 seconds and any attempt to bring it back resulted in failure. I’m not complaining, though.
The noise projected onto A3’s body has begun to feel different. There are larger clusters of noise around the area that individually look like spots in your vision you get when you stare at a bright light a bit. These blobs were at their most vivid when I concentrated on the sphere, so I’m assuming they amount to something, probably.

If you ever want to get serious about imposition, I recommend you read up on building proper habits. This takes a loooong time, and if you’re not prepared for the long run, it’ll be harder to keep the process going. If you know your stuff, you’ll know how to commit. I cannot stress this enough; persistence and repetition come before anything else, even before effort. 

I know I am still very far off of my goal, most likely not even halfway, but thanks for sticking around and reading this. I’m motivated to keep going and to learn more about imposition so that I can live out all the stories people have told about their own imposition journey.
 

Doodle dump if you're into that ↓

Spoiler

Edited November 19 by ringgggg

[ringgggg]

I have begun to focus on A3 in a specific way. I can only describe it to a certain extent thanks to how limited written text can be of representing ideas, but I wanted to still get it down for the sake of documentation. I have noticed how I can shift my focus from my environment to a perceived (invisible) imposed object much like a camera shifts perspectives from background to foreground. I am able to blur my vision at will to adjust my focus.

 

During today’s session, I had realized that my attention was shifting back and forth from A3 to the objects behind her. Taking this into account, whenever I noticed myself losing focus on A3’s boundaries, I set my focus back onto her form. Doing this made the boundaries more solid than normal, if only for a couple moments in between refreshing my attention.

A user by the name of Hormoz posted this piece of imposition advice back last year, and it’s a very practical tip for understanding how to go about the process.

 

Quote

most people have very little idea what they are doing, so instead of progressing they just spend energy for nothing. I think it's less about going AAAAAAAAA work work work, and more about finding something that works and snowballing that.

Taking a look at all the people who have come before me reminds me that I can do it just as they did. I feel that it’s important to share what they have to say because all of it’s been scattered throughout random threads. Not everybody’s willing to sift through dozens of mentions just to find good advice.

Edited 20 hours ago by ringgggg