tulpa.info book discussion club

[TB]

18 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

1. what did you like about the story? what did you dislike? what parts stuck out to you?

I also have an extreme fear of dying like Mami does. Fortunately I'm not on my deathbed like she was though. So I sympathize a lot and it makes me feel like I'm not alone, because in real life most people seem to not care about death and is okay with it, which freaks me out.

 

19 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

2. did any of you see the film version, and if so, which version did you prefer, and why?

Unfortunately I forgot about the film versions. I should watch them eventually. How long are they?

 

20 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

3. in the beginning of the story, tetsuro mukoda talks about how all of his dreams are unpleasant, but when mami takeshima begins having long dreams, she doesn't mention them being unpleasant. why do you think that is?

That's a good question. Also tetsuro's longer dreams seemed to become more pleasant, like he lived a millennia with a wife he loved dearly. The horror came from him waking up and realizing that massive life with so many experience and memories was just a dream and not real, which is so mind effing and unacceptable. Maybe the crystals in his brain just evolved over time, and mami got evolved crystals that tetsuro's brain made somehow to I guess cope with the nightmares? Also no one knows what his last dream was like before he turned to dust. It's interesting to think of what it was, and if it was truly eternal.

 

22 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

4. why do you think mami takeshima was so afraid of dying?

If she's anything like me, I just super value existing and experience and having a consciousness that can think and do things. The idea of that going away is so scary, because you love it so much and don't want to lose it or miss out. Also the fact that ceasing to exist essentially makes all of your existence irrelevant, as you can no longer remember it, so it's the same as if it didn't happen. You could have not been born at all, and it would be exactly the same. I hate the meaninglessness of that, so I hope dearly there is an afterlife, and thinking about it makes me severely depressed, so I usually suppress it and distract myself with other things to cope. Idk why I chose this story as it has subject matter that freaks me out too much, as it is assumed you cease to exist after death in this story, as I guess Japan is mostly kind of atheist or shinto or whatever, not sure what shinto's believe in regarding afterlife, but I think most of them just do ceremonies because it is in their culture and they don't truly believe in the supernatural. Some may be supersitious too, like in the country or something, but it is probably increasingly rare. I don't know the true facts of all this, I'm just assuming based on what I have gathered of japan watching so many videos about it growing up.

 

26 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

5. if you could choose to have an eternal dream (assuming it wasn't a nightmare), would you?

That's an amazing question. It is so good and so bad. It is a dream so it is fake and solipsism in your world is basically real. But you may be able to argue your dream characters are actually real sentient people generated by your mind (I like saying mind instead of brain because brain sound so materialistic and mind sounds like something the temporarily resides in the brain but can leave it and continue on, and it is your experience). But anyhow, you get to exist forever and always have experience? You may also have a higher degree of control over what happens because it is  dream, so you can get really good outcomes that make you happy? If I could dream and become byakko or something, I'd be so happy. I've had dreams where I'm Byakko, and as a child, existing is just enjoyable in and of itself in those dreams, where I don't worry about anything or my insecurities of not drawing enough or living a life with a part time near minimum wage job in a trashy apartment with constant fear something can explode and throw my life in the gutter, like losing my HUD for some reason and becoming homeless, because I can't live with my dad as he is in a special house made for veterans to get back on their feet and the only roomates that can have is other veterans in the program. I've never lived without my dad for 26 years and now I'm on my own, and life just continues... I'm going to evently be 28, then 29, and what is my life doesn't get better? What if I still am mediocre at drawing? What if no one looks at my drawings and I get no attention, thus can't make money from it and live doing something I love for once instead of this crappy job that I have to do because no one else wants to. Dreams are awesome, and it is partly why I sleep on average 12 hours a day. Half of my life is wasted dreaming, and I often forget my dreams so it is worthless, but when i do remember them, some of them are so precious. In summary, an eternal dream is appealing and you can argue it is the same as real life. maybe real life is another form of a dream, and we are all apart of a higher consciousness that is generating us.

 

That's my thoughts so far. What else should we say? What do you think? Sorry it is long and rambly, maybe I'm bad at this...

[Breloomancer]

8 minutes ago, TB said:

I also have an extreme fear of dying like Mami does. Fortunately I'm not on my deathbed like she was though.

what is interesting to me about mami is that she isn't actually on her deathbed. in the manga dr kuroda says "[her] most severe problem seems to be her fear of death", and in the film her illness is explicitly said to be something the doctors expect her to recover from. she is the only one who thinks that she is going to die

 

although actually, i kind of wonder if she is right about death, but for the wrong reasons. in the beginning of the manga, dr kuroda compliments mami's good instincts after mami mistakes tetsuro for the specter of death. what if her instincts were warning her that tetsuro about how the long dream, while giving you eternal dreams, also destroys your body. it would be quite ironic then, that her instincts which meant to protect her from the long dream, in reality made her a prime candidate for dr kuroda to infect

 

21 minutes ago, TB said:

How long are they?

the film is ~an hour long. it diverges from the original story somewhat by adding in an additional subplot where dr kuroda has visions of his dead girlfriend, kana, and it has a different ending from the manga. i thought both the manga and the movie were good. the manga was much shorter, just saying what it had to say and ending, but the film takes a lot more time to explore the nature of life, death, and dreams

 

30 minutes ago, TB said:

tetsuro's longer dreams seemed to become more pleasant, like he lived a millennia with a wife he loved dearly.

that's true. i wonder if the unpleasantness of the dreams from before comes from how tetsuro was trying to cling to the waking world, so he couldn't accept the dreams, but over time, he forgot about the waking world, so his dreams became more important. and then mami was so afraid of death that she wasn't able to truly live, so i guess it was a lot easier for her to accept a world where she couldn't die, even if that world was less "real"

 

36 minutes ago, TB said:

It's interesting to think of what it was, and if it was truly eternal.

i wonder that too. eternity is really difficult for humans to understand. an exponential increase in finite numbers will not become infinite within a finite number of iterations, so maybe tetsuro's body gave out before he was able to have an eternal dream, and really it was just hundreds of thousands of years long

 

39 minutes ago, TB said:

you can no longer remember it, so it's the same as if it didn't happen.

you think only things that you can remember have value? i feel like i would rather have a good experience that i don't remember than to remember a good experience, but not actually experience it in the moment. the past is less ephemeral, but it's also less meaningful, i find

 

eternal life i think is almost as scary as death. there have been times when i have not wanted to live, and the thought that, one way or another, it will one day end, has given me comfort. either things will get better, or i will die and not have to deal with it. but if i cannot die, that introduces the possibility that i will have to deal with it forever. not exactly a healthy mindset, i know, but still, if i am going to live forever, i can't count on always being of sound mind

 

53 minutes ago, TB said:

That's my thoughts so far. What else should we say? What do you think? Sorry it is long and rambly, maybe I'm bad at this...

you can say whatever else you want to. those were just some things to spark discussion, but you don't have to limit yourself to them. you can even post your own prompts if you want, but no pressure, since i don't expect anyone else to have prepared something like that

[TB]

12 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

what is interesting to me about mami is that she isn't actually on her deathbed.

Oh, I didn't notice that for some reason. I guess one can still believe death is inevitable, as it seems to be now. But it seemed she fear it would come soon. Hmm.

 

14 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

although actually, i kind of wonder if she is right about death, but for the wrong reasons. in the beginning of the manga, dr kuroda compliments mami's good instincts after mami mistakes tetsuro for the specter of death. what if her instincts were warning her that tetsuro about how the long dream, while giving you eternal dreams, also destroys your body. it would be quite ironic then, that her instincts which meant to protect her from the long dream, in reality made her a prime candidate for dr kuroda to infect

 

Yeah, that's weird. Your body gets destroyed either way too though, so in one iteration you at least exist for at least thousands of more years, if not somehow for eternity if these crystals pull off that illusion. I guess in things like LSD and DMT time can become meaningless and the trip can feel like it lasted months or that an eternity passed in the moment or something. I haven't had these experiences myself but I've just heard about it from trip reports. I'd like to experience it myself someday though. However I imagine it isn't the kind of eternity you are actually going for and may be more metaphorical. Or maybe it is preferable. I have no idea

 

16 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

the film is ~an hour long. it diverges from the original story somewhat by adding in an additional subplot where dr kuroda has visions of his dead girlfriend, kana, and it has a different ending from the manga. i thought both the manga and the movie were good. the manga was much shorter, just saying what it had to say and ending, but the film takes a lot more time to explore the nature of life, death, and dreams

Interesting. I have it opened in a tab now. I'll look at it when I feel like it...

 

17 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

that's true. i wonder if the unpleasantness of the dreams from before comes from how tetsuro was trying to cling to the waking world, so he couldn't accept the dreams, but over time, he forgot about the waking world, so his dreams became more important. and then mami was so afraid of death that she wasn't able to truly live, so i guess it was a lot easier for her to accept a world where she couldn't die, even if that world was less "real"

Yeah, that makes sense I think. Your theory is maybe better. Or they could go together perhaps.

 

18 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

i wonder that too. eternity is really difficult for humans to understand. an exponential increase in finite numbers will not become infinite within a finite number of iterations, so maybe tetsuro's body gave out before he was able to have an eternal dream, and really it was just hundreds of thousands of years long

Yeah, that's what sucks. Even if you lived a million years, if you cease to exist it is like it didn't happen. So adding time doesn't really add value in the same way to me... It may make things better in the moment, but moments disappear every instant and can't be clinged on to. I like experiencing things in the moment, but I also like the memories of them and living in a context reality where something good happened. it holds everything together so I find it more important than the experience themselves perhaps. It's like the cradle for everything that's ever happened so it has the value of all your experiences, instead of just one experience you are experiencing now

 

21 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

you think only things that you can remember have value? i feel like i would rather have a good experience that i don't remember than to remember a good experience, but not actually experience it in the moment. the past is less ephemeral, but it's also less meaningful, i find

Yes. I can't understand wanting to experience something but not remember it. I don't see why the past is less meaningful. I wonder why we disagree. What happened in our lives? I've had a fear of ceasing to exist since I was like 4 years old and I learned that people die. I begged my mom and dad to tell me it isn't true and that you keep existing in some form. They told me you do keep existing after death, so I calmed down. Then in highschool I met atheists for the first time and was so shell shocked and blown away that someone could possibly not believe in god or the afterlife. Before then I literally thought everyone believed in god and the afterlife, and thus it had to be true because it was common knowledge for everyone and a duh thing. Some people not believing started to give me doubts and confusion so I freaked out and got another aspect to add to my depression. I've never really found a cure. I think meditation might be the best cure, if I can become awakened. Idk what they will be like other than what I've heard people talk about it like, but it requires experience to know for sure. I'm kind of terrified I won't become awakened in this life and it will be a huge waste. Frank Yang says he'd kill himself if he had to go back to living as an unawakened person. That's just how good it is and you realize how much of a waste and terror your life was before it. Multiple awakened people said they'd rather live 1 day awakened than live 20 years as a happy and successful athlete with a good love life and whatever else you want. Shinzen Young said "The other way is scary" referring to experiencing life unawakened. Wow, sorry, I got off topic kind of. It's only relevant because I think it is the solution to the fear of death, and in mediating and listening to awakened people, I become more self aware as to how horrifying life is, and I want to escape this way of living.

 

28 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

eternal life i think is almost as scary as death. there have been times when i have not wanted to live, and the thought that, one way or another, it will one day end, has given me comfort. either things will get better, or i will die and not have to deal with it. but if i cannot die, that introduces the possibility that i will have to deal with it forever. not exactly a healthy mindset, i know, but still, if i am going to live forever, i can't count on always being of sound mind

I've always said I'd rather live eternity in hell than cease to exist. Particularly if I got to be my characters and was in hell, at least I am my beloved dear characters. Idk how I'd be multiple people at once, but I want to become them, even if things are horrifying. Preferably if I can at least fight for things to become better. Nowadays I think hell is a bit much and I'm less sure I'd want to live in a hell, depends on what it is like I guess... If it is literally just burning in the hottest most painful fire forever, then man, I guess I'd rather cease to exist. If you are just a person living in the burning steppes in WoW or something, well that's kind of neat I guess and you can try to make something of your existence, despite the wasteland and danger

 

My friend used to have either a belief or it may have just been his world building for his roleplaying characters where, if you are good in life when you die you have an eternal dream that is good, if you are evil you have an eternal nightmare, and if you are perfectly neutral it's not quite known what happens to you, perhaps you cease to exist

 

31 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

you can say whatever else you want to. those were just some things to spark discussion, but you don't have to limit yourself to them. you can even post your own prompts if you want, but no pressure, since i don't expect anyone else to have prepared something like that

Okay. Hmm. I hope my new responses are good and interesting. It's stuff that is really important to me

 

I wish I could convince everyone to work on becoming awakened with me, but that seems impossible. People need to become interested in and begin following the path of their own volition. You can't force them, or they get annoyed, and doubt it is actually any substantial anything. Frank Yang says to become awakened, you have to die before you die... I guess he means an ego death, but it is still an experience of actually dying and it is horrifying, but you come out the other side a different person. When he meditated at a certain point it makes him sick and bedridden in a lot of pain, and he thought he was actually dying. Meditation isn't baby stuff... it can have serious consequences. But seems to be the only way to connect with anything like death in the living world. How else do you experience death or look at what death is while living? It's all theoretically and made up, with no experience. Meditation appears to actually show you what it is like, perhaps, and that is really scary to me because I'm not sure if I like the answer, but I'm not quite sure what it actually is, so I look myself, poorly and I fail, but at times I meditate as much as 3 hours a day because I really care to see... 

 

I feel like I'm really off topic but it still feels connected to me. I hope my response isn't... out there. The manga had nothing to do with meditation, but it is the only thing I think can make you connect with the concept while living. Maybe you have other ways I haven't thought of? Perhaps near death experiences. Those can be life changing, and often make people believe in an afterlife

 

Apparently at death DMT is released into your brain? Maybe that is the afterlife, and the DMT gives you a timeless experience, like an eternal dream. If this is true, I'm highly concerned about how I will die, as I feel there may be deaths that circumvent the DMT and you get nothing, like if you got nuked and vaporized or something

[Breloomancer]

24 minutes ago, TB said:

Oh, I didn't notice that for some reason. I guess one can still believe death is inevitable, as it seems to be now. But it seemed she fear it would come soon. Hmm.

the manga is a lot more ambiguous than the film. in the manga, mami's condition and its severity are left vague, but they are made explicit in the film, so that colored my perception of the story

 

if life represents evolution and death represents stagnation, then memories are dead, and life can only exist in the present. that's why i care more about experiences than memories. not that memories aren't valuable, but a record of the past should exist to assist in the present, not the present existing merely so that it can be recorded

 

i used to be a lot more afraid of death, but i guess now i am afraid of so many other things that death is less scary by comparison

 

27 minutes ago, TB said:

Apparently at death DMT is released into your brain? Maybe that is the afterlife, and the DMT gives you a timeless experience, like an eternal dream.

it's probably not eternal, since you die afterwards

[TB]

11 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

it's probably not eternal, since you die afterwards

 

I guess but it still may be an experience where time becomes meaningless and you feel satisfied you have everything

 

12 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

i used to be a lot more afraid of death, but i guess now i am afraid of so many other things that death is less scary by comparison

Hmm, interesting. What else are you afraid of that is scarier than death? I also am afraid of things actually... I went to the hospital because I told my therapist I was becoming suicidal due to my worthless stagnating life and I started drinking again. I hope it isn't like this forever. I implied I may want to die, but die to me preferably means moving on to a different life and trying something else, not ceasing to exist. Ceasing to exist is actually fine with me if you come back at some point... So things like nirodha samapatti or whatever it is called seem cool.

 

15 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

if life represents evolution and death represents stagnation, then memories are dead, and life can only exist in the present. that's why i care more about experiences than memories. not that memories aren't valuable, but a record of the past should exist to assist in the present, not the present existing merely so that it can be recorded

I think they just both go together and one without the other is worth less than them together, by a lot.

 

16 minutes ago, Breloomancer said:

the manga is a lot more ambiguous than the film. in the manga, mami's condition and its severity are left vague, but they are made explicit in the film, so that colored my perception of the story

Interesting

[Breloomancer]

3 minutes ago, TB said:

What else are you afraid of that is scarier than death?

other people, disappointing them. i'm afraid of other things too, but that is the main one that can properly rival death

[TB]

Just now, Breloomancer said:

other people, disappointing them. i'm afraid of other things too, but that is the main one that can properly rival death

Me too. I think I disappointed my drawing mentor and I feel horrible. I wish I was a better drawer. I don't like the word artist but people keep calling me that, it's uncomfortable. I draw things... simple unsophisticated things... it's not really art, just drawings. Some things are emotional, but still. maybe that gets closer to art when I do that. I'd like to more

 

Man I tangent a lot. Where's ringgggg? I wish he'd join in too, maybe there'd be more to say

[Breloomancer]

3 minutes ago, TB said:

I don't like the word artist but people keep calling me that, it's uncomfortable. I draw things... simple unsophisticated things... it's not really art, just drawings. Some things are emotional, but still. maybe that gets closer to art when I do that. I'd like to more

what do you feel entails art? what would you have to change in your drawings for them to become art?

 

yeah, this is going way off topic, but i'm fine with that. this is meant to be a casual thing, so, unless it becomes disruptive (which i find unlikely), i think it's fine for the topic of discussion to drift

 

i would like to hear ring's and pariah's thoughts on the story, but this isn't a super time sensitive thing; they can chime in when they get the chance and it should still be fine. although i do feel kind of bad that ring was here on time, but then hasn't been here for most of the discussion so far because i was late

 

we also need to figure out what we're going to read next, but i figure that we can do that when the discussion on long dream winds down, and even after we figure out what the next story will be, i think it would still be fine to bring up any new thoughts on long dream until it comes time to discuss the next story

[TB]

Okay, cool. What would be disruptive?

 

And art would be things that have more thought behind them I guess, that isn't just a character standing there. Or something that is insanely well designed and skillful. Skill alone doesn't make art though, it has to be able to have meaning to people. I don't think people standing at a 3/4th angle is very meaningful. But drawings like my Amy/TB in her baphomet form, or Tayomi cowering on the ground after cutting herself a bunch, invoke a lot of emotion in me, so I think it might be art. Unskilled art, but art. I'd rather have unskilled art than skilled not art. I feel like I'm not very creative right now though and I don't know how to fix it. I like werewolf Rena's pose I guess, so that's a little better, but still kind of generic. Some things don't really evoke emotion but just are visually appealing. Idk if that's art or not. I guess it can be. I like abstract things added to the drawing too. I like a lot of my other mentor's drawings, paixi. They draw things actually happening, or abstract things. My main and original mentor, zerion, kind of has the curse of just drawing people standing there looking pretty. He's extremely skilled and has gotten dozens of times better since I've met him, but I'm not sure I'd call his stuff art, and I don't think he would either.

 

I'm still wanting to play TRC Z but I'm having trouble getting over the fact I would have to DM and that seems stressful. Theoretically fun, but idk if I have the personality for it. I'm also struggling to think of a dungeon that would be fun and challenging for basically a Z warrior or two or 3, and a magical girl. I made part of a dungeon, but it would be better suited to my main character before he trained with piccolo, because that is when he unlocked the insane dbz super human strength. Before that he was more like ryu hayabusa

 

It's interesting to think of the psychology of my main character that is actually me but from a divergent timeline where at 16 (the age I was when this started) entered a choatic twisted randomized world with dangers everywhere, and was eventually trained by a ninja that thought I might be worth something and made into a death machine. I wonder if they are afraid of death like I am. They have died before, and there is an afterlife, so I guess not. His fear would be he wouldn't have access to the world of the living and be able to save people. At the same time he might think man, I commit a lot of unnecessary kills by accident, maybe it's better if I'm not allowed to interact with the world, lol.

 

Everything he touches, dies. It's depressing. Killing is like genetically hardwired in him by accident. It's actually because I'm so paranoid the person will kill or betray me, or is actually an enemy, so I kill them as unfairly and quickly as possible to eliminate what I perceive as a threat, because if I lose my character I might not get them back, and I'm too attached to them. Same for Byakko, but Byakko actually didn't go in dungeons much and spent most of her time training with daisuke.

 

Maybe this is what you meant by disruptive. I'm sorry if it is. Well, it touched on the concept of death too actually, so maybe it's fine. But part of this message might have been better in LOTPW, I'm not sure. Byakko just doesn't think about death probably, she's more like you and is too busy living and experiencing things and not worrying about the past or future much. She's kind of enlightened in a way but not really. I believe she will be one day though

 

My main character is actually enlightened, but unclear I roleplay an enlightened person well lol. I tried to make them feel a massive relief and not worry about things as much. I almost want to say he became self aware he is just in a game, but idk if my friend would agree or allow that. I miss roleplaying this with them.

 

Agh what's wrong with me. I hate to waste people's time, I hope it was somewhat relevant

 

Also zerion:

Spoiler

 

Paixi:

Spoiler

 

Edited November 12, 2023 by TB

[Breloomancer]

2 hours ago, TB said:

What would be disruptive?

if other people are trying to discuss the book while we are talking about unrelated stuff, then we should move somewhere else, probably lotpw, but if there is no other discussion, then it doesn't really hurt anyone to go off topic

 

i don't think you give yourself enough credit as far as your drawing abilities. you may look up and see how much better you could be, but you should still appreciate that your drawings are already pretty amazing. as far as making art, if you just have to make it meaningful, why don't you just, ya know, do that. it sounds like it would be a very easy thing to do

 

2 hours ago, TB said:

I'm still wanting to play TRC Z but I'm having trouble getting over the fact I would have to DM and that seems stressful.

yeah, i get that. in my experience dming, running the game itself isn't too hard, but preparing things between sessions can take a lot of time and effort, especially if you're running an original adventure

 

i love coming up with dungeons. i've got a bunch of half formed dungeons rattling around in my head that i need to get around to fleshing out