What possession "feels like"

[SeekingMyPlanet]

When Lavender takes control of my body, it doesn't feel the way I would have expected. I knew I wouldn't have amnesia or dissociation, since those are things my brain doesn't seem to do, so I'm not sure what I expected.

 

For lack of a better way to describe it, it feels like I'm "pretending to be Lavender." I speak with her voice, I do what I think she would do and say what I think she would say. My own voice becomes purely mental, just a sound in my mind. But it still feels like it's me that's doing stuff and not her.

 

I've talked with her about it and she assures me that despite what it feels like, she's in charge when she's possessing our body. She suggested that maybe feeling like I'm pretending to be her is what being possessed is supposed to feel like for the host consciousness, but neither of us really know. I can't shake the nagging possibility that we're doing it wrong and maybe there is a better way.

 

Can any folks who have more experience with possession shed any light on this?

[SeekingMyPlanet]

Wow. OK. I think we just answered our own question. We stumbled on a different way to do it, where I just stayed in the background and quieted my use of my mind. There was nothing for a while, but then Lavender found she could talk to me. That's the key. I have stay in the background. I didn't have the confidence to do that.

 

At least I can feel good about my instincts that said we weren't doing it right. This is SOOOOOOO much better.

 

From Lavender: I feel sort of responsible, because I was the one saying it's probably fine and my host consciousness was saying they thought we were doing it wrong and I was all, "you just don't have confidence." But I agree with them. This is way better. We know better now.

Edited December 12, 2023 by SeekingMyPlanet

[Guest]

4 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

pretending to be Lavender

 

This is a common feeling, it's just a feeling though and eventually it may not feel like this. Before we could switch, Bear and I used to play a game called "what would Ashley do?" Where he would only do or say things after getting the ok from me. Eventually it got to be really easy to get that handshake and at some point it wasn't a game anymore, I had clearly switched.

 

We also did triggered switching where if Bear got into a situation he couldn't mentally handle (because he was pretty fragile at the time),  he would mentally go hide under a desk and I would handle it. He actually went to a place we call "watcher position" which is like tulpa position except there is no emoting and it's more like objectively watching someone else. He isn't thinking it's him doing anything, but rather me. Symbolically in wonderland it's a small movie theater minus the popcorn.

 

In another thing we do called "lock-merge" it's exactly like pretending to be whoever is expressed, so it's a neat way to co-experience.

 

4 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

she assures me that despite what it feels like, she's in charge

 

Trust her, yes it's more about feelings and not reality. Being host for so long, you tend to want to associate to all things body even when you're not in command. That's also normal. Just keep practicing and she'll eventually do things that you wouldn't do and you'll be like, "it couldn't have been me".

 

We're trying to get Autumn to have that moment, but she doesn't have much reason to front. It's a thing that helps you separate from the mindset that, "it's my body and thus everything must be me."

 

2 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

I have stay in the background.

 

You got it.

 

There are other things like co-fronting and blending so that might happen too, but switching hygiene can help with that. Ask @Luminesce about the details of switching hygiene, we don't do that because it was pretty natural for us once we got the hang of it.

 

@TurboSimmie also has good switching hygiene if she wants to share that. I think it could help you gel this switching thing.

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Ashley

[ReallyArtificial]

((Glad to hear you've found a solution. Possession is the area of growth on which I'm currently focused, so I enjoy hearing from the more experienced as well. It seems to feel different for every system.))

 

2 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

That's the key. I have stay in the background

 

((This was the lesson we learned too. Our current strategy is for Bee to focus on producing/maintaining a tingling sensation in her hands. With her mind occupied, I can easily assume motor control.))

 

It also helps to know your "tells." My fingers start to get twitchy when we're transitioning control. Athelas holds things very differently from me, I think because his mental form's hands are so much bigger than the body's. After I take back over, I always feel a severe need to crack my knuckles. Noticing stuff like that really makes me feel like we're doing things right (for us).

[Luminesce]

I don't actually know much about possession because my system doesn't do it. Possession surely feels different to different systems, as well.

Switching is when the host and tulpa swap positions entirely, leaving the tulpa as what the host has always been and the host as the tulpa has always been. That means the tulpa is the human there for all intents and purposes - ignoring "strings attached" like tulpas often having trouble not falling out of the front/accidentally switching back with their host early on, and the brain's default thought patterns and mannerisms rubbing off on them if they let them (though these can be trained with will power and intent)

 

Possession is just a tulpa manually controlling part or all of the body, but the host and tulpa in the mind don't actually change places or anything. Though I'd imagine the tulpa would be a lot more active, and it's pretty normal for different systems to basically create different experiences from others, like how conscious/aware the host is and how immersed in experiencing the senses the tulpa is (they probably shouldn't be much, if you're intending to do possession and not switching)

 

And of course there's always the weirdness that long-term possessors (who full-body possess for entire days and practice this for years) seem to follow a trend of the experience approaching (but rarely if ever becoming the same as) switching, with the tulpa getting more associated with the conscious mind and the host being almost entirely not present. Some people might like how it works out for them, but others end up kind of ruining their ability to actually switch if they pursue that by becoming so familiar with their "advanced possession" as I call it that they try to switch by just "possessing harder" or something, typically the problem being their host stays permanently associated with the body's consciousness and they can't figure out how to "kick them out". It helps to understand that when switching, you do not take the body's entire consciousness with you, and the one switching in takes the driver's seat of the conscious mind so to speak. But still, it's worth being aware of this stuff for choosing what you want to do and how you want the experience to be.

 

If you want the host to always be some level of present and to simply be sharing the body with the tulpa, then possession is good, including however it advances for you guys over time. But if you want the host to be entirely "gone" (or at least, in a tulpa position & probably frequently dormant when not focused on), possession is entirely the wrong skill and approach to achieving that. And then there's countless other less defined experiences people have created that tend to be mish-mashes or even just make sense only to them lol. Co-fronting (which I don't know anything about myself, mostly because it differs in what it means by system tbh) and lock-merges (exclusively Bear's system's term, but they've written plenty about it) being the most common two you may be able to ask about, while many systems (especially who have practiced possession a lot) probably have their own custom experiences going on that may not even have terms associated. Switching and possession are the two ""official"" terms that there's lots of writing on, though. Not that everyone has the same experiences..

Edited December 12, 2023 by Luminesce

[ChloeBee]

12 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

For lack of a better way to describe it, it feels like I'm "pretending to be Lavender." I speak with her voice, I do what I think she would do and say what I think she would say. My own voice becomes purely mental, just a sound in my mind. But it still feels like it's me that's doing stuff and not her.

 

This is one of the things that surprised me about tulpamancy. When I first started I had the notion that having someone else in your head talking with you and possessing your body was going to feel very novel and alien, but I was surprised when I discovered that it felt...very normal. As in, it still felt like me even though it was Simmie doing those things. That puzzled me for a while until one day I finally realized: No Duh, it's still my own brain, silly! Thoughts and sensations coming from this brain are going to feel a certain way no matter whether they're associated with Simmie or myself.

 

One of the things I've had to learn as a Host is how to get out of Simmie's way as she learned how to do things. After a lifetime of being the only one controlling this mind and body, it was very hard to conceptualize someone else, another "ego", doing it. Simmie had a very hard time staying in the driver's seat. But we've managed, and I'm impressed by her growth.

 

As far as feeling like you are "pretending to be Lavender", that is something you'll have to power through with Lavender's help. Simmie is very assertive when there is any doubt about whether or not something (a thought or action) was really her. She won't hesitate to say "that was me" or "that wasn't me", depending. I think Lavender could benefit from taking that approach.

 

That being said, we don't do all that much possession these days apart from Simmie possessing my hands to type. That she learned how to do after proxying for a very long time until I realized I didn't have to be the middleman in that action anymore. We like switching better because it's a full and complete reversal of who is what. And yes, I have "counter-possessed" my own hands when Simmie has been switched in to be able to type, lol.

[SeekingMyPlanet]

12 hours ago, September13 said:

 

This is one of the things that surprised me about tulpamancy. When I first started I had the notion that having someone else in your head talking with you and possessing your body was going to feel very novel and alien, but I was surprised when I discovered that it felt...very normal. As in, it still felt like me even though it was Simmie doing those things. That puzzled me for a while until one day I finally realized: No Duh, it's still my own brain, silly! Thoughts and sensations coming from this brain are going to feel a certain way no matter whether they're associated with Simmie or myself.

 

One of the things I've had to learn as a Host is how to get out of Simmie's way as she learned how to do things. After a lifetime of being the only one controlling this mind and body, it was very hard to conceptualize someone else, another "ego", doing it. Simmie had a very hard time staying in the driver's seat. But we've managed, and I'm impressed by her growth.

 

As far as feeling like you are "pretending to be Lavender", that is something you'll have to power through with Lavender's help. Simmie is very assertive when there is any doubt about whether or not something (a thought or action) was really her. She won't hesitate to say "that was me" or "that wasn't me", depending. I think Lavender could benefit from taking that approach.

 

That being said, we don't do all that much possession these days apart from Simmie possessing my hands to type. That she learned how to do after proxying for a very long time until I realized I didn't have to be the middleman in that action anymore. We like switching better because it's a full and complete reversal of who is what. And yes, I have "counter-possessed" my own hands when Simmie has been switched in to be able to type, lol.

Thank you for this. I really appreciate all that you and Simmie have done to help me along this journey. It really does help. Whenever I see that one of you has replied to one of my questions, I find myself saying, "oh, wow, this is going to be good."

 

I'm fortunate that Lavender has the capacity to tell me when I've mistaken one of my thoughts for hers, or vice versa. (Though she has been known to shade the truth if she's afraid it will hurt my feelings. We're working on that...) That you tell me you learned how to "get out of Simmie's way" gives me hope, because that's what's needed here, and it's really going to take practice. 

 

I confess I don't fully understand the difference between switching and possession.