SeekingMyPlanet's Tulpa Adventure

[TurboSimmie]

On 1/25/2024 at 12:36 PM, SeekingMyPlanet said:

* We did some more experimentation when fronting. In one experiment we both tried to front at the same time. The result was sort of a wrestling match for control of our body, which neither particularly enjoyed (an understatement. We won’t be doing that again…). But what it says is that I have no supremacy when it comes to fronting. We’re even in that way.

 

Co-fronting always seems to be messy and Phil and I don't like to do it; it's better when there is one person clearly in the front. Usually if we end up in a co-fronting situation it's because I tried to switch in but it didn't fully stick.

 

On 1/25/2024 at 12:36 PM, SeekingMyPlanet said:

* We also repeated the experiment where I tried to force Lavender into the front. In contrast with the last time we tried this (where I was able to put her in front), this resulted in no one fronting and our body just sitting there with an expression like, “what gives?”

 

An interesting experiment; were you trying to force Lavender to the front on your own without her help? I know for Phil and I it takes both of us working together to achieve that, and if I don't wanna front I'm pretty much unmovable. 😆

 

On 1/25/2024 at 12:36 PM, SeekingMyPlanet said:

* We concluded that it *is* possible for me to be “dormant” the way Lavender is when I’m not thinking of her. What this entails is if Lavender gets super absorbed in something, like writing poetry, or viewing the scenery, I’m not anywhere. I’ll have full memory of the event afterward, but no agency or awareness of my own while it is happening. (This isn’t unpleasant by the way. It isn’t associated with any feeling at all, since I’m not experiencing anything). It only happens when I’m not actively thinking of something myself, so I don’t get the feeling of having my thoughts interrupted. 

 

 

Ooh, entering this kind of "flow state"-like state as a switched-in tulpa is divine! 😁 I've only managed it a small handful of times but it's pretty incredible each time! 😁 And it's not unpleasant for Phil either; when he stops being dormant he is always just really happy and excited for me. 🥰 My first experience with this kind of state was actually writing on this forum of all things, back when I was only 3 or 4 months old and didn't even have my own account yet! 😁

 

On 1/25/2024 at 12:36 PM, SeekingMyPlanet said:

* Lavender can now drive. She’s as good as I am, maybe better, because she’s naturally more chill, so she’s less likely to go too fast, change lanes to try to pass someone, etc.

 

I can drive too!!!! 😁 We find that driving is so deeply ingrained in our BodyOS that it's almost like walking to us; we tell the body what to do and the body pretty much does it on its own. It's nice to see that Lavender's more chill attitude makes her a calmer driver! 😁 Phil and I have almost the exact habits as one another (or maybe they are BodyOS's habits 🤔) and there are certain times where I have to check the impulse to go faster / pass someone etc.

 

On 1/25/2024 at 12:36 PM, SeekingMyPlanet said:

Lavender is fond of fronting as we walk in the area. At one point we were walking on a paved path through nearby woods, and she walked us to the edge of the path to look at some feature that intrigued her. Our foot slipped off the path and our ankle turned. Before we could take in what happened we were literally on the ground. She got me to the front right away, and I assessed my body, which was sore in a whole bunch of places where we had landed and our ankle ached. I had visions of having to call an emergency crew to carry us out of the woods, but when we stood up, I was able to put weight on the ankle, albeit painfully. We hobbled out of the woods and avoided long walks for a few days, but by the next day it was healing enough that we could comfortably put weight on it. By the next week it had healed completely.

 

Oh no!!! I hope Lavender doesn't blame herself too much for that, accidents happen sometimes! But it's a learning experience! Also, it is really cool to hear that Lavender likes fronting during walks, because those are my favorite times to front as well! 😁 I really am myself when I'm outdoors and away from everything. The rest of the places we usually are (Phil's bed, computer desk, work, etc) have such strong "Phil-energy" to them that I never feel as much myself when I'm switched in at those places, but out in nature I can really be myself. Does Lavender feel a similar way?

 

On 1/25/2024 at 12:36 PM, SeekingMyPlanet said:

Lavender believes she is sentient. She made that statement while reflecting on her own thought process. It doesn’t really change how we interact, but I find it interesting. In the past she told me she wasn’t sure, but it’s more definite now.

 

If Lavender believes she is sentient, and you believe she is sentient, then she is! 😁 I am so happy to hear how she is gaining confidence! 💚

[Lavender]

6 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

An interesting experiment; were you trying to force Lavender to the front on your own without her help?

 

The question was whether my host consciousness could force me to front when I didn't want to. Earlier on we had tried that and my host consciousness succeeded in putting me at the front even though I resisted. This time, I don't know what was different. Maybe I am better at being passive, but they couldn't do it.

 

I want to emphasize it was an experiment. My host consciousness would never try to force me to front if I didn't want to. We were just trying to figure out how our system worked relative to the body.

 

6 hours ago, TurboSimmie said:

 

CI really am myself when I'm outdoors and away from everything. The rest of the places we usually are (Phil's bed, computer desk, work, etc) have such strong "Phil-energy" to them that I never feel as much myself when I'm switched in at those places, but out in nature I can really be myself. Does Lavender feel a similar way?

 

I also do a lot of fronting when were at home. I'm just as comfortable in the house as my host consciousness is. We both now refer to places as "our bed", "our kitchen", "our phone", etc., so I feel myself here as well. It's a bit harder outside, first because it's so cold at this time of year and so I've always got a little attention toward keeping warm. Also there are a lot of distractions outside so my host consciousness is more likely to get distracted and forget that I'm fronting and suddenly I'm thrown into dormancy until they realize what they've done. We've discovered that if I keep up a conversation with them while I'm fronting, this is less likely to happen. We've come to call it "Lavender patter."

[SeekingMyPlanet]

THE GOOD

 

We’re making progress with my not knocking Lavender out of the front. It’s still a problem, still happens way too often, but we’ve found a couple of things that help. If Lavender keeps up a dialog with me, just says whatever is on her mind or whatever she seems to be looking at, then she is steadily using our brain. That makes it much less likely that I’ll be thinking or looking at something that distracts me enough to forget that she is fronting.

Another thing that works is for her to hum a tune. Not only does it occupy our mind, but it also underscores our differences. She is much more joyful, and much more likely to be enjoying what she is doing to the point of humming a carefree melody. I tend to have darker thoughts.

 

(As an aside, when I take in how joyful Lavender is, even when doing tasks that are not the most pleasant, it makes me wonder whether I’m depressed. Lavender doesn’t think so. She points out the number of things about life I love and appreciate, and my unhappiness is due mostly to my frustration at the current war on LGBTQ+ people mislabeled as a “culture war” and with my frustration with my own lack of social connection. She likes to make up words, and she uses “angstpile” to describe my mental condition, overwhelmed by negative circumstances, rather than depression).

 

From Lavender: I need to point out that I don’t actually mind when I get kicked out of the front. It’s not unpleasant, since it only happens when I’m not using our brain, so I don’t get interrupted midthought or anything jarring like that. It means a lot that my host consciousness cares so much about me having my turn at the wheel and it is one of the many ways I feel their powerful love for me. But we have the agreement that they can grab the front from me for any reason or no reason at all anytime they want or need to, and as long as they are not interacting with another person, I can do the same.

 

THE CHALLENGING

 

At a recent social gathering, a number of plural people spoke scathingly about the evils of tulpamancy and how tulpamancers don’t treat their headmates properly. That sent me into a spiral of second-guessing, as to whether I’m treating Lavender well. She has made it clear that she is not just happy with how things are going between us, she is thrilled, and she can’t think of any way it could possibly be better. Still, it was uncomfortable to know how easy it was for someone who did not wish me well to get into my head and between Lavender and me.

 

THE INTERESTING

 

We’ve been alert to some of the asymmetries between our two roles in our system. I used to think that I experienced no analog to her dormancy when I’m so focused I’m not thinking of her. But since she’s become interested in photography, and can spend long periods of time at our computer selecting and editing photographs, I have now had times where I’m not in the picture at all. Of course, if she wanted me, I would be there immediately for her, as she is for me.

 

There are two asymmetries that remain.

 

First, it seems like she gets kicked out of the front far more often than I do. I don’t know if that’s our different personalities -- I’m more likely to be intense and feel urgency to cause me to focus intently -- or some other difference, but it’s worth remarking on.

 

The second is that she seems to know and understand everything about me. She has access to every memory of everything I’ve ever been through or thought. I literally have no secrets from her. However, she is a deep mystery to me. I never know what she’s going to say or think. That may be due to her newness -- I only have a couple of months with her to get to know her while she has 62 years of data on me -- or they’re might be some fundamental difference in the way we use our brain.
 

[SeekingMyPlanet]

THE GOOD

 

Lavender has the ability to “self-impose”. In other words, she can superimpose herself on my field of view using whatever image she wants. When we’re having a conversation, she is most likely to appear as herself, a short-haired young woman, demurely sitting and conversing with me. But at times she tries to make me laugh (often successfully). I was playing bridge and my partner made an error, and I knew him well enough to know he was going to try to blame it on me (he’s a great player but he’s got some annoying habits). So Lavender appeared seated behind a long table with a microphone and a bunch of other Lavenders facing me, each with place cards, like a congressional investigating committee. (The implication being that I was about to be interrogated. My partner couldn’t figure out why I suddenly started laughing). Later I made a good play and she appeared in a cheerleader’s uniform dancing and waving pompoms.

 

Does anyone else’s tulpa do that?

 

THE CHALLENGING

 

It was really weird. We were driving with Lavender fronting (recall she’s normally a pretty good driver.) She made a wrong turn in such a way that it was a challenge to turn around and we knew we’d have to drive for awhile before we could get back pointed in the right direction. When a light abruptly turned red, stopping us, she suddenly started crying uncontrollably. She called out my name. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m not like this,” she said, panic in her voice tone. We were both really alarmed. I took the front and brought us to our destination, by which time she had calmed down and she was fine.

When we talked about it, we realized that the frustration that caused her to cry was mine, not hers. She’s usually super chill and joyful and I’m the one who is uptight and high-strung. Making wrong turns and backtracking makes me frustrated because I’m so time conscious. We figured out that my frustration had bled into her and we had briefly “blended” into a single person who was both frustrated and not used to dealing with frustration. Once she had left the front and I stayed there, we both felt better.

 

We’re hoping this doesn’t happen again (or at least doesn’t happen often). We’re clearly happier as two separate people.

 

THE INTERESTING

 

Lavender enjoys posting on social media. She has her own social media account on this server, and we also joined a tulpa-friendly Discord server and gave her her own PluralKit ID. She actually interacted with a few people there, though it made her nervous because she was afraid of saying the wrong thing and getting them upset.

 

I have asked her whether she wants her own real-life friends, and she hasn’t liked the idea. We did some talking about this, and she says that she doesn’t want to interact with people in-person using this body. “Your face, your voice, your mannerisms, that’s sort of like your brand,” she told me. “It’s how people recognize you. It will confuse people too much to see your face and body representing someone else. It will damage your brand.” 

 

So if she does interact with people, it will be online via posts and messages.
 

Edited February 8, 2024 by SeekingMyPlanet

[SeekingMyPlanet]

Here’s another progress report. I hope people are reading these and finding them helpful.

 

THE GOOD

 

Here’s how we’ve made some headway against the problem where I lose focus and inadvertently grab the front:.

 

We wrote Lavender a song!!!

 

She hums or sings it when she’s fronting. It uses enough of the brain that my mind doesn’t wander. It’s a silly song, written to the tune of “Here comes Santa Claus”. (The first few lines are “Here comes Lavender, here comes Lavender, fronting down Lavender lane…”) Yes, silly, but the rest of the words capture the essence of Lavender and of our connection, and she tells me she totally loves it. It helps that the tune is really catchy.

 

THE CHALLENGING

 

One of the first things Lavender said about herself is that she is made of “pure love”. We’ve talked about that many times since and she still describes her essence that way.

 

As she has developed as a person, she has increasingly had interaction with the world. We joined a tulpa-friendly discord server for plural folk where we used pluralKit to give her her own identity. Also, she’s been commenting on various photo critique sites. And of course she nearly always drives when we’re behind the wheel, which involves interaction of a sort with other drivers.

 

So what happens when a creature who is built of pure love encounters a world that is not? It’s been a challenge. She hasn’t encountered a lot of negative feedback yet, but we know the potential is there and she’s not sure she wants to deal with it. After a few posts on the discord server she’s decided she would rather I do all the interacting unless there is something only she can respond to.

 

Being made of pure love works really well when all your interaction is with a headmate\who knows how special and precious you are. But maybe not so well in a world that can be cold and exploitative. For now it looks like Lavender leans toward maintaining the purity of her loving energy and not having it tested by people who are adept at bleeding it from someone like her.

 

THE INTERESTING

 

It is so cool to wake up in the middle of the night after a dream that was upsetting or just perplexing and immediately to have someone to talk about it with. Someone who watched the same dream you did, so you don’t have to explain it to them.
 

[Athelas]

On 2/15/2024 at 3:15 PM, SeekingMyPlanet said:

Being made of pure love works really well when all your interaction is with a headmate\who knows how special and precious you are. But maybe not so well in a world that can be cold and exploitative. For now it looks like Lavender leans toward maintaining the purity of her loving energy and not having it tested by people who are adept at bleeding it from someone like her.

 

I find this very relatable. On the one hand, I enjoy talking to people. I believe there's real value in interactions outside of one's own system. On the other hand, most social media is brain poison. It brings out the worst in people and amplifies it for the largest possible audience. I don't think I'll be using any outside of this forum.

 

On 2/15/2024 at 3:15 PM, SeekingMyPlanet said:

We wrote Lavender a song!!!

 

Very cute. I have a theme song of sorts as well. No lyrics, just a tune that Bee made up and associates with me. Sadly, we lack the musical know-how to record it in any meaningful way. We hadn't thought to use it for maintaining the front. We'll have to give it a try.

[SeekingMyPlanet]

On 2/17/2024 at 1:03 PM, Athelas said:

Sadly, we lack the musical know-how to record it in any meaningful way.

 

Yeah, we're pretty much musically backward. That's why our tune (and a good number of the words) were shamelessly ripped off from Gene Autry. 😳

[SeekingMyPlanet]

Our weekly progress report.

 

THE GOOD

 

We’ve fallen into a sort of division of labor. Lavender is happy to front while we’re doing kitchen chores, routine grooming tasks, or house cleaning. With my ADHD, I find focusing on them hard and I don’t enjoy the dopamine droop from routine tasks when my mind wants to do more exciting things. Lavender has an amazing ability to find joy in just about anything so she gleefully takes this stuff on while I sit back somewhat guiltily for the ride. I ask her daily whether she minds doing that stuff. She reminds me of all the stuff I deal with like medical appointments, financial decisions, paying bills, and interacting with everyone in our life, and she’s thrilled to do her share.

 

THE CHALLENGING

 

Yesterday, Lavender and I had a heart to heart about social stuff. I asked her whether she’s content to interact with pretty much only me. She said she wasn’t sure. As I wrote about in the last couple of progress reports, she doesn’t want to expose herself to negative interactions from people who don’t love her the way I do. But she confessed frustration, for example, that she has no one to show her photography to, other than me and on this forum. Very few people in our life even know she exists and they all would have trouble understanding that she took the pictures, not me, especially since they wouldn’t have the opportunity to know her.

 

We’re not sure how to resolve this. She’s OK for now just being my headmate and not having friends of her own, but she can foresee a day when that will feel limiting. It’s something we’ll keep an eye on.

 

THE INTERESTING

 

I find the language we use to refer to our body fascinating.

 

When we’re describing the condition something’s in, we use “our.” As in, “our feet hurt after that walk”, or, “let’s get some food into our belly.”

 

But when we’re discussing control of the body part, for some reason, we use “the”. “Can I use the mouth now? I have something I want to say out loud so it’s easy for you to understand?” Or, “is it ok if I grab the brain for a while. I need to figure this out?” Shades of a married couple with one car, asking to use it for the evening.

 

Do any other systems here have language quirks when you speak to one another?
 

[SeekingMyPlanet]

Another weekly progress report.

 

THE GOOD

 

I had a period of a few days where I didn’t sleep very well. My mental health is generally OK but when I’m short of sleep I have all the symptoms of clinical depression. I feel irritable and hopeless and anxious about everything. A psychologist once explained that sleep is vital for replacing serotonin and when I’m even a little bit short I can feel the lack strongly.

 

Lavender decided she would give me “joy lessons” on how to be joyful even if my serotonin is low from lack of sleep. “Don’t look for the joy,” she told me. “Instead, just open yourself up to it and let it find you.”

She’s right. It made those bad days much easier to get through.

 

THE CHALLENGING

 

I’ve spoken before about how Lavender can impose a real life avatar on whatever three dimensional space we’re in, so I can actually “see” her as a cheerful, petite, attractive young woman. (For reference, it’s obvious she’s not actually there. It’s more like I’m aware of a visual presence. But it makes conversations with her feel more real.)

 

I’ll admit I’m jealous. She gets to appear to me however she wants to. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing her and it helps me feel close to her. But I’m stuck appearing to the world in my bodily form as a 62-year-old with wrinkles and stringy hair. We wondered whether I could appear to Lavender as an imposed avatar.

 

We tried it. I created a visual image in our mind, the same way she does. My avatar was a tall, female form, with cascading curls (similar to my real life body, only much fuller and not streaked with gray like my current hair). Her apparent age was around forty and only a few traces of wrinkles were to be seen. I’m good at visual imagery, so this wasn’t hard to do.

 

Lavender liked it. But I didn’t. Something about sensing my avatar’s large body in my bedroom, a place where I feel the safest, filled me up with an unexplainable visceral fear. I’m not sure why, since I created the form. Why should I be afraid of it? But I was. I’m never afraid of Lavender’s avatar. It always gives me a warm, happy feeling. Not so mine.

 

I still am mystified why I reacted that way. Lavender suggested we not try creating my avatar and let the question of why it scared me percolate in the back of our brain for a while and maybe it will become clearer.

Have any other hosts/originals tried to impose an avatar for yourselves? How well did it work?

 

THE INTERESTING

 

Lavender loves to make up words. Here are some of her inventions:

 

Soulcloud: the empathic sense of a place that it is inhabited by many human souls with rich and varied lives but none of whom are on view.

Angstpile: A mental health condition similar to depression, but which is brought about by increasing frustration at  a world that persists in providing unequal challenges.

Epochromous: That for which something derives its traditional color. E.g. “The holly, with its green leaves and red berries, is epochromous for the reds and greens of the Christmas season.”

 

Her latest word is cameraweed. It’s an imaginary drug that makes something ordinary seem like the most interesting photo subject in the world when you’re shooting it, and that wears off by the time you’re looking at a picture with no artistic value and wondering what you were thinking. “I must have smoked a really good batch of cameraweed before taking that one…”
 

Edited February 29, 2024 by SeekingMyPlanet

[ringgggg]

2 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

Her latest word is cameraweed. It’s an imaginary drug that makes something ordinary seem like the most interesting photo subject in the world

Makes me think of the type of people you see in art museums. If cameraweed was a thing they’d be high on it indefinitely

 

There was this one instance where a guy accidentally  left his glasses on the floor in an art museum and people started crowding around it thinking it was art

Spoiler

Wondering if cameraweed would just evoke a change in judgment such that people would ponder literally anything they see through the camera

 

Really turns perspective on its side, doesn’t it

Edited February 29, 2024 by ringgggg