bunnymustdie February 5 Author February 5 Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: I experimented once with different lighting conditions for imposition this week, with the tulpas in different time slots as the last time I did this experiment. I find that daylight, even if it feels too strong, does not seem to mess with the process as much. There is a definite sense of it helping or somehow providing something I needed. Artificial light from a lamp in the evening does not seem to have this positive quality. The best I can do with it is tweaking the intensity of the light to ensure it does not disrupt the imposition exercise. This has been true for both tulpas. I realize I've been too focused on the different sensations I've felt over the past few weeks, such as bodily tingling, strong feelings of connection and whatnot, and that the strong desire for them has in itself become something detrimental. For the last few days of the past week I tried to just do the exercises and focus on my visuals. Whatever other sensations or phenomenon I get, I just let it be. Ironically enough the first night I adapted this attitude I immediately had stronger bodily tingling and other associated sensations. Over the past week the tulpas have better presence and movement in my mental visualizations. I can slip to a state where I see them easier, quicker. Even when mental visuals of them are not clear, they still feel more substantial somehow - more physical, more solid. Similarly I can get to a level where I perceive some sort of solid presence of them with my eyes open more reliably and quicker during imposition practice. I tried to change my approach toward imposition this week. Instead of just getting to a certain mental state and let my subconscious do whatever it wants, I tried to take a more active role. Once I get to the state where there's a significant physical presence of the tulpas, I try to visualize their form in the space where the presence it actively. It feels like this has been fruitful. The strong presence of the tulpas seem to help with these sorts of visualization. They don't feel entirely like a thing occurring inside the recess of my mind like they did in the past, but rather something that is more or less taking place where the presence is. I find I have an easier time with their feet and legs, which is located in an area of the room that I stare at frequently during my past exercises, and which are also the bodies parts on them I've unconsciously spend more time visualizing during imposition. I started consciously changing the area of the room I gaze at to be where their upper body and head should be, and have been spending effort on those parts during my open eyed visualization/imposition exercises. This week I had one session with lights on brightly in the room with Verres where I achieved a pretty strong physical presence and blobby visuals of something shadowy in front of me, that at times became more clearly defined outlines. I did the above mentioned visualization exercises while her presence was strong and it seemed to help. As if the visuals I was trying to make were painted on the more shadowy form, acting as a canvas, in front of me. At the end of this session I had very clear physical sensations when I hugged her. There was a very clear sensation of something with a breezy quality slinking within my embrace, along with a strong feeling of me actually hugging something almost wispy, halfway physical that made the side of my neck, the insides of my arm and the back of my shoulders tingling strongly. When the hug was finished, there was also the distinct impression of the same wispy being leaving my embrace. The part at the end of the hug where I try to visualize her walking away from me, into an open door back to the wonderland, was also somehow much more vivid and real. Miscellaneous Stuff: I've taken care of more urgent issues related to my mind over the past couple of years. The sources I learned from have a more clinical slant, where they are focused on eliminating specific issues and producing specific results. Once these results were achieved I was at a point where I had no other goals to work toward. My understanding of some of my mental processes are only attributed to a vaguely defined "subconscious". I bought a bunch of books by Carl Jung recently and have started to read through the first one. It is my hope that they will provide a road map of sorts to better help me understand my subconscious, and in term give me a better idea on my future direction and goals to work toward.
bunnymustdie February 12 Author February 12 Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: I spent one day this week with brighter conditions during visualization and imposition. Similar to before, natural sunlight feels better, like it has something that helped whereas artificial light was just something to be tolerated. For both of these sessions that I had in brighter conditions, I've felt more comfortable and at ease, with the brighter lighting not hampering the process nearly as much as when I first started experimenting with it. I've continued trying to actively visualize the tulpas or feel out their outlines once they have a strong physical presence this week. It feels like this is a good direction to go in for the time being. With focus, I can somewhat reliably get to a state where they have a strong presence. Once in that state, it feels like the activity of mentally seeing their colors or feeling out their shapes does something to temper the presence. Enhance it somehow. Actual mental visuals of them being imposed on the physical environment have been sporadic. There were a few times when the hugs at the end of each session felt physical and more intense. Usually these come after sessions where I managed to work up a strong presence and worked well with visualizing them with my eyes open. These hugs feel like I was actually holding onto something wispy and ethereal, but with a definitely physical quality. I can get these more reliably now. A couple of these hugs came with the sensation of something slinking into my embrace, and leaving it again when the hug ended, similar to what I described before in a previous progress log. Most of these more intensive hugs have been with Verres. I went to the local Wal-Mart again and used the opportunity to impose Verres there. I managed to get a really strong and stable presence of her there. It was very different from the very first few times when I started trying to impose in the Wal-Mart, when the stimulation from the different shoppers and the environment as a whole felt overwhelming and disruptive to the process. Visuals of Verres were minimal during today's outing. There was an instance, however, lasting many seconds when the feeling of her physical presence peaked, and it very much felt like I was just casually strolling in the store with my friend. A perfectly human sized friend, perhaps with wings and a tail, that I cannot see. It took no effort on my part to maintain this presence during that time, it simply existed and walked in front of me as if it was a natural thing that belonged in the world. It was rather interesting to experience it. I noticed once again that while I was walking about in Wal-Mart, my ability to visualize and feel the walking motions of Verres were perfect. It felt like it helped make my attempt to visualize her and Saeya later in the day better too. I've gotten the impression from my various outings so far that being able to be near other people is helpful for imposition. Perhaps someone who is a student or work in an environment with a lot of other people can potentially make more progress as a result of this. Miscellaneous Stuff: I've continued reading through the Jung book mentioned last week. It is his autobiography and there are already interesting information. It feels like I will get a lot of promising pieces to the puzzle I'm trying to fill out from even just this book alone.
bunnymustdie February 19 Author February 19 Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: I've continued reading Jung's autobiography and was inspired to try something different. Instead of treating my subconscious as a thing that I own, which sometimes cause troubles and at other times I try to extract value out of, I tried to treat it like a sapient being in its own right. I observed the things that made it excited, for example stories and scenarios that I made through an AI service, as well as the contents of my mental distractions when I'm trying to focus on visualization and meditation. I also reflected on the themes of the daydream fantasies that it inspired me to have in the past. A very big common theme in all of those is that of family, which is something my waking consciousness does not seem to care much for. When I was doing my normal visualization and imposition practice for this week, I would acknowledge my subconscious and the things it's interested in first, and mentally try to accept them instead of just quiet them. It's led to interesting bodily sensations that are different from the tingling bodily sensations I've had so far. They feel denser somehow, and the tingles I get from them tend to be in slightly different areas of my body, with what feels like a longer period of time between each prickling sensation, and the overall sensations goes deeper through the core of my body. Some of the earlier times when I did such acknowledgements resulted in more unusual sensations, to note, the impression of something that was hanging on me crookedly being nudged back into place, and draping warmly over me. Of something now fitting right, being clicked into its proper position. A sense of wholeness and integration. It's a pleasant sensation. These acknowledgement have led to generally much stronger presence of my tulpas so far, and it feels like they can help me consistently achieve a stronger presence of them. There were a few times this week when I reached the stage where I blinked quite a bit, where there was the undeniable feeling of something physical in the room with me during imposition practice, along with a more whitish blobby humanoid form of the tulpas in front of me. In one session, I saw a fairly clear outline of Verres for a few seconds before they faded away. There were also several very physical hugs at the end of these sessions. A thing I just remembered is that there were also several sessions this week that felt like the Wal-Mart trip from last week, where I felt for sure that my physical friend, aka the tulpas, were present and hanging out with me in the bedroom during imposition. They weren't a mental voice or mental presence in my head while I tried to physically visualize them in front of me. They were a physically present, albeit invisible being, that was in the room. These occurrences were pretty cool when they happened. I don't know if the enhancements brought about by acknowledging my subconscious this way would last. There was a time months ago when I did something similar where I realized that a lot of my fantasies and distractions were rooted in escapism and a failure to accept myself. While they provided benefits to my ability to visualize and impose for a while, the benefits seemed to have faded away overtime, as if working on those issues were not a magic bullet which provided everything, but simply a single milestone that provided some aid for a while. For now I'll continue to work with my subconscious this way and see how much more help it can offer, both toward visualization/imposition, and just for my own growth in general. Miscellaneous Stuff: Acknowledging my subconscious had a stronger effect on my music playing than the tulpa related stuff. I've been able to focus well and play with a lot more confidence during my practice sessions. It has a similarly noticeable effects on meditation so far. Of note was that I noticed the theme of "reunion" was something that it reacted very strongly to. I experimented with generating various endings with the theme of reunion with stories I was making through AI (stories with themes related to family, something my subconscious already seemed to like), and it led to intense emotions in it/me, to the point of being moved to tears. The theme of reunion, with perhaps family, does not appear to arouse such intense emotions when I direct them with my actual real life family, such as my deceased grandparents and other kin who I left behind when I moved overseas. Whoever that my subconscious is eager to reunite with is a mystery. The great emotional response, which was able to lead to tears, was not necessarily negative or traumatic. It was just intense, laced with maybe an odd longing. I briefly contemplated using the Mace Energy Method on it, but opted against it - the emotions did not seem to be harmful and messing with them seemed disrespectful if I were to see my subconscious as a sapient being. I've been thinking about about how I treat my dreams today. For a long time, I thought of my normal dreams as mostly useless fluff, at best as tools and stepping stones I can use to try to lucid dream or astral project from. Things for me to exert MY will with. In the past, when I lucid dreamed frequently, I'd also play with my normal dreams pretty roughly, messing with the flow of the dream's storylines or damaging dream NPCs. If my normal dreams are part of the attempts of a sapient subconscious, a friend or even an intimate partner, to try to communicate with me, then these actions would have been pretty rude and unhelpful. The fact that I've had less dream phenomenon over the years, from normal and lucid dreams to dream induced astral projections, may be related to this. This has led me to consciously try to approach my dreams differently, and to treat even a normal regular dream as something to appreciate on their own. I don't know if this will lead to anything different, but I will observe to see what happens.
bunnymustdie February 20 Author February 20 Had a dream, the first clear and complete one in a while despite that my sleeping pattern had not changed. It seem related to my change in attitude toward my subconscious and dreams. In the dream, I received a phone call from a pizzeria thanking me for finally accepting the regular slices of pizza they had for sale, instead of demanding for custom slices each time. Despite that I was not fully lucid I understood this was related to my recent acceptance of "regular" dreams, instead of thinking them as no good. The dream shifts to a different scene where I am now with new co-workers of some sort. A couple of middle aged white men were there, speaking to me incoherently, however I understood the intention behind their words as friendly. A chubby black man who was also present showed me math or technical problems to be solved in a book, only for the text to shift to either poetry or jokes of some sort. It was a gesture of wood will. This portion of the dream generally had themes pertaining to a new cooperation or venture. I hung out more with the two previously mentioned men, spoke of treating them to a meal and rode a train or some other type of transport with them to an unfamiliar area for a while. It was British or otherwise had a vibe of being a familiar, yet foreign place. There were generally strong feelings related to that of new friendship. I'll observe to see if this leads to anything interesting the rest of the week.
bunnymustdie February 26 Author February 26 Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: For the past week my tulpas' physical presence has generally improved further. Instead of feeling like a blobby presence is there in front of me, a lot of times it feels more like there is an invisible person whose bodily shape and form can be felt by me, somehow. This is a more physical or touch based impression, rather than visual. There has been a few times this week when I've visually seen a vague outline of them in the room, these came with a feeling of something wanting to come through these outlines, to become more physical or visual, somehow. I've generally been doing better with mental visualizations as well, details that were previously more vague and ill-defined are clearer now. One impression I've had is that my visual impositions are at least partially linked to the mental visualizations, and if I spend a lot of time "grinding" the mental visualization exercises on my tulpas, it would help my imposition efforts as well. I tend to find the mental visualization stuff dull and grinding it would risk depleting my motivation, so I've avoided going down this route so far. Because my progress and impressions from physical imposition has been heavily based on the sense of touch and just generally sensations of my tulpas' invisible presence, I decided to try something new today. I used my body awareness, which is usually used during energy work to stimulate parts of my body, perhaps chakras, on the perceived presence of my tulpa in front of me. To run my awareness hands over the invisible forms of the imposed tulpa in front of me and to feel out how each part of their body should feel and their outline in general. To gently feel out the shape of their hairstyle, face and whatever other parts that tend to be more challenging for me to visualize. This has been very helpful so far. Doing this does help define their shape better and lead to better open eyed visuals as I work with their presence with my awareness. It feels more natural and easier to cover more ground on their body than using my physical hands, which just felt awkward when I tried doing so in the past. I've similarly tried to use my body awareness on my tulpas' forms when I am mentally visualizing them with my eyes closed. It helps make their forms clearer and more accurate in the wonderland as well. I've refrained from using my body awareness on my tulpas' physical presence in the past because I've had the belief, dogma rather, that the body awareness can only be used on my body itself (and occasionally subconscious mental/spiritual stuff) since that's how it's usually used per the books I've learned it from. It never occurred to me until today to experiment with them this way. I'm happy I did since it feels like this can open the door to a lot of new progress. I went to Wal-Mart today. Verres' presence was initially being automatically imposed by me when Saeya interrupted the process and was imposed instead. The last few Wal-Mart trips had been Verres' turn and Saeya wanted her turn as well. Interesting to note was that Verres was originally articulating a train of thought to me about the state of the economy based on a couple of really ratty cars we saw, one with large dents in the chassis and another with severe damage to the front lights fixed with only duct tape. When Saeya took over, it felt as if she was there awkwardly holding this train of thought. She did finish expressing this train of thought, but it very much felt like the thought was more like an animal or thing that had its own existence, rather than something generated specifically by Verres or her. She was just someone who this thought was suddenly passed to. In Wal-Mart Saeya also had a similarly solid physical presence like what Verres had the last time I visited. An invisible, but definitely physical entity with features and shape that I can somehow feel. This presence remained stable despite the sometimes chaotic environment inside the store. Incidentally because of the abrupt way Saeya took over the imposition outing from Verres, they came close to having a fight. Some accusations of "rudeness" were hurled, I do not remember by who. Saeya de-escalated this before it turned into a full blown... thing. Miscellaneous Stuff: Since when I last posted about my strange dream after changing my attitude toward them in general, inspired by my readings of Jung's autobiography, I've had dreams almost everyday despite not having made any changes to my sleep schedule. Most of them have been mundane. One of them have been quite spectacular in terms of emotional intensity and the unusual and specific themes it had contained. I've written it down in my personal journals since it's not particularly related to tulpamancy. Acknowledging my subconscious and the source of whatever distractions I'm having appear to still offer benefits to my visualization and imposition attempts. The really outlandish and strong sensations from doing so have largely faded to a more mundane level - still noticeable, but my body or whatever other process responsible for detecting these sensations are likely getting used to them.
bunnymustdie March 5 Author March 5 Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: Using my body awareness hands like what's described by Robert Bruce's energy work stuff on my tulpas have proven to be very helpful. I've been experimenting more with it this week. Touching my tulpas and generally feeling them out, especially on parts that I had trouble visualizing or imposing, serve to make them feel more solid and well defined for me. It also help with keeping my wonderland better defined. What I've been doing with my wonderland interactions is that instead of using the hands of whatever form I imagine for myself there, I simply go straight to using my sense of touch to quickly run multiple, 10+ hands or palms over whatever surfaces or even entire rooms that I want to touch. This lets me quickly analyze whatever thing I want to feel with my sense of touch without other stuff, like my imagined form, getting in the way. I've always found using my physical hands during imposition to be awkward and minimally helpful, and similarly using an imagined humanoid form in my wonderland clunky. It feels like I've mostly avoided using my body awareness because of existing biases where I believed my body awareness extend only to my own body during imposition or the physical environment in general, as well as wanting to interact in a purely humanoid form in my mental wonderland. I went to the nearby mall with my mother last week. During the trip I decided to spontaneously impose Verres. She felt very vivid in a strange non-visual way. I didn't make too much of an effort on my part, and she was already there with a strong presence no different from what another person would feel like. While most of the experience was non-visual, I had a clear sense of the details of her body. I was able to feel clearly the posture she had, the curve and position of each of her individual fingers as she gestured and laid her hands on the back of the car seat, and the way her legs moved with each step. I had similarly strong sensations of her non-human body parts such as her wings and tail. It was a very queer sensation, very much based on touch, but oddly localized to the tulpa located a couple of feet away from my physical body, where one would typically expect the sense of touch to be confined to. During this experience there were many mental images of Verres as well, but none of them were directly imposed on the physical environment. Nonetheless, they served to make the experience more realistic. For example, the clear or "real" sensation of her fingers curled up a certain way as she craned her neck over the car seat and grinned felt a lot more realistic when mental images of the same scene flashed through my mind. Verres felt very vivid in this unusual touch-based manner in a way that felt automatic, like it was either her or some unknown process inside of me responsible for it, rather than through my own conscious efforts. I tried to ask her about this during this experience, and she asked me to let this question go and just enjoy the experience while it lasted, which I did. This took place during late afternoon when the sun, while still bright, was setting. It felt like somehow the sunlight enhanced this experience. Made the entire thing prettier, and perhaps somehow contributed to it. As of the past few months I've describe feeling as if my tulpas have substance, "bones", or just the general feeling of them being present, invisible but having a clearly defined form. Interacting with them remotely with my sense of touch to feel them out and trace along their bodies have greatly improved these sensations and increased their occurrence. For the past week I've managed to feel this way a lot more often than the weaker feeling of there being a blobby, indistinct presence around. Using this technique can also consistently get me to feel this way about them, rather than just having it occur as a seemingly random byproduct of my condition on that day. For the past week progress has generally been greater than how they have been compared to the recent weeks. I feel pleased about it and will continue experimenting with this new direction. The tulpas have overall felt a lot more real, even if they weren't a whole lot more visual. It actually feels like whether they can manage to be visual is not as important anymore, given how present and "real" they've managed to feel the past week based purely on this sensation of touch alone. I had another regular trip today to the dying mall nearby to just walk around and impose. Both tulpas have benefited from the new technique I've experimented with, and felt a lot more stable and solid as we walked around. Their presence remained clear and their bodies felt clearly defined. They did not degenerate into a blobby presence or flicker back to being purely mental along any point of the walk. Miscellaneous Stuff: I am almost finished with Jung's autobiography. He did spend a lot of time studying alchemy. And Freud sounds... off. Based on the book and Jung's interactions with Freud, If a person managed to make a wonderful piece of art, like a spectacularly beautiful picture, Jung's worldview allowed for that person to have a soul or something similarly transcendent and great deep inside of them to be responsible for the creation. In the case of Freud, it seems like it had to be because of repressed sexuality. Freud allowed people to only be ugly two legged animals, and based on Jung's interactions with him, had an almost religious insistence on this. He wanted this ugly materialist view of people being only animals, motivated by lesser urges, to be like a piece of religious dogma that can not be challenged of assailed in anyway. It reminds me a lot of certain attitudes I've seen online in this day and age. I've managed to make connections of this with other philosophical works I've read in the past, and it's helped make the world and modern politics clearer, and sadder, for me.
bunnymustdie March 12 Author March 12 (edited) Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: I've continued doing imposition practice at least once a week in brighter conditions. I can generally do it in bright conditions as good as in the dark now. When I'm imposing a single tulpa at a time, they don't really become a blobby presence anymore. Even when I'm not intentionally trying, as long as I am feeling their presence in the physical environment they'll end up having a decent feeling of an outline, with specific body parts to it. It feels like this is a somewhat automatic process that the unconscious part of myself is doing. These outlines continues to be mostly touch based, with mental images that frequently popping up along with them as a complement. For the most part, their presence in the physical world feel a lot more real and substantial because of this. I went for a trip downtown today to deal with my tax stuff. I imposed both tulpas a lot along the way. I had another experience this morning where Verres felt very present, with a lot of vivid details on how her entire body, posture, outfit and more of how she was like very clearly felt by my rather displaced sense of touch. This too, happened without me working intentionally to make it occur. This is the second time I've experienced this really vivid state with her, and both times it was under conditions with bright natural sunlight, and in newish situations that I rarely engage in. It feels like either the sunlight is helping with imposition, or the fact that the new situation occupied my consciousness's attention and somehow allowed a more unconscious part to help with the imposition process. Either way I'll try to observe what conditions are present when I encounter another episode of either of my tulpas being really vivid in imposition. I imposed Saeya on the train today and took the time to work on her face and sort of feel out the shape of her skull with my mental hands. Some of the trouble I've had with visualizing or imposing her face came from me unconsciously using a more masculine skull structure when I am working with her, and I made effort today to address that. Verres wanted to be imposed too when I was walking about downtown with Saeya, and she made herself present. A month or two ago I had an experience where both tulpas were being imposed by me, and I felt quickly overwhelmed by that, as if this was somehow taxing my mental abilities too much, too quickly. Today I was able to impose both tulpas together much better. There were times when their presence would degenerate into more blobby feelings, rather than the clearly felt type with their body details present, but they were still both there. I noticed that when I imposed both of them at the same time, I was much more likely to be distracted by a stray thought and end up completely stopping with the imposition. Overall, though, I did much better imposing both of them together, and it was amusing to walk around downtown as a little party almost like what a JRPG sometimes features. I also spent time working on the way the tulpas walked today. Ordinarily when I am doing either visualization or imposition work, I see them as sitting near me and rarely get to work on their walking movement. I did that a lot today when I was waiting for the train back home. It was also beneficial to visualize/impose the tulpas next to other travelers in the train station, this helped me visualize their bodily proportions more accurately. Overall though, today did not feel like a trip I took downtown where I occasionally communicated with my tulpas in my mind. For the first time since these yearly trips downtown during tax season in my adult life, it felt like today was a trip I took with my two good friends, and we played and hung out together a lot as I handled my business. Miscellaneous Stuff: I received a bottle of probiotics where the manufacturer recommended for me to take it before bed, rather than before or after a meal. I keep forgetting to do it, and I asked Saeya to remind me to take it at bed time a few days ago. The next day I observed a strange thought popping up in my mind before bed. It felt a lot like an automatic process, a thought not quite my own, going through the process of remembering something - the thought went from fuzzy and ill-defined to becoming clearer and closer to whatever it was supposed to be, until ultimately it resulted in an "eureka!" moment of clarity along with Saeya's slightly monotonous voice telling me to take the probiotics. The entire thing felt distinctly foreign and alien. I've continued regularly having dreams while keeping the same usual sleep schedules. Reading Jung's autobiography made me rethink my attitude toward my subconscious and my dreams, and it seems the changes that it in turn inspired in my subconscious has continued to stick. This is pretty neat. I am finished with Carl Jung's autobiography as of today. There's still the Seven Sermons to the Dead listed in the appendix, but I don't think I'll be reading those yet. Jung's autobiography was helpful to me, and probably would be helpful to a lot of tulpamancers. He encountered a lot of strange and downright metaphysical things in his life, and did his best to make sense of it. Not all of them could be neatly pigeon-holed into labels of placebo or hallucinations, since they had verifiable proofs, but he has a map of sorts on where to put these things in the world, and how they related to his psychology and a person's growth and fulfillment as a human being. These are helpful to me on how to deal with the strange things I've encountered both generally in life and specifically involving my tulpas, and likely would be helpful to other tulpamancers as well. He even touched on some modern issues, some of which may overlap with the life of a tulpamancer, such as bad psychiatrists who only prescribe medication without seeing & understanding the patients as real people, or people who seem very fixated on the idea that all they are is a brain inside a flesh and blood body. I'll be reading books of his with more specific theories next, and hopefully they will be similarly fruitful as well. Below are a couple of excerpts from his autobiography that I thought was helpful in understanding some of the views and stances I've observed related to tulpas. This part was related to his theories on life after death, but feels relevant to the materialism vs metaphysical difference in view about tulpas: Quote If there is something we cannot know, we must necessarily abandon it as an intellectual problem. For example, I do not know for what reason the universe has come into being, and shall never know. Therefore I must drop this question as a scientific or intellectual problem. But if an idea about it is offered to me - in dreams or in mythic traditions - I ought to take note of it. I even ought to build up a conception on the basis of such hints, even though it will forever remain a hypothesis which I know cannot be proved. A man should be able to say he has done his best to form a concept of life after death, or to create some image of it - even if he must confess his failure. Not to have done so is a vital loss. For the question that is posed to him is the age-old heritage of humanity: an archetype, rich in secret life, which seeks to add itself to our own individual life in order to make it whole. Reason sets the boundaries far too narrowly for us, and would have us accept only the known - and that too with limitations - and live in a known framework, just as if we were sure how far life actually extends. As a matter of fact, day after day we live far beyond the bounds of our consciousness; without our knowledge, the life of the unconscious is also going on within us. The more the critical reason dominates, the more impoverished life becomes; but the more of the unconscious, and more of myth we are capable of making conscious, the more of life we integrate. Overvalued reason has this in common with political absolutism: under its dominion the individual is pauperized. His musings on Christianity, but also generally on materialism (i.e, people are just brains in flesh and blood bodies) and psychology: Quote In my effort to depict the limitations of the psyche I do not mean to imply that only the psyche exists. It is merely that, so far as perception and cognition are concerned, we cannot see beyond the psyche. Science is tacitly convinced that a non-psychic, transcendental object exists. But science also knows how difficult it is to grasp the real nature of the object, especially when the organ of perception fails or is lacking, and when the appropriate modes of thought do not exist or have still to be created. In cases where neither our sense organs nor their artificial aids can attest the presence of a real object, the difficulties mount enormously, so that one feels tempted to assert that there is simply no real object present. I have never drawn this overhasty conclusion, for I have never been inclined to think that our senses were capable of perceiving all forms of being. I have, therefore, even hazarded the postulate that the phenomenon of archetypal configuration - which are psychic events par excellence - may be founded upon a psychoid base, that is, upon an only partially psychic and possibly altogether different form of being. For lack of empirical data I have neither knowledge nor understanding of such forms of being, which are commonly called spiritual. From the point of view of science, it is immaterial what I may believe on that score, and I must accept my ignorance. But insofar as the archetypes act upon me, they are real and actual to me, even though I do not know what their real nature is. This applies, of course, not only to the archetypes but to the nature of the psyche in general. Whatever it may state about itself, it will never get beyond itself. All comprehension and all that is comprehended is in itself psychic, and to that extent we are hopelessly cooped up in an exclusively psychic world. Nevertheless, we have good reason to suppose that behind this veil there exists the uncomprehended absolute object which affects and influences us - and to suppose it even, or particularly in the case of psychic phenomena about which no verifiable statements can be made. Statements concerning possibility or impossibility are valid only in specialized fields, outside those fields they are merely arrogant presumptions. It feels a lot like Jung as a scientist, or the thing called "science" he practiced in general, was a lot more open minded and willing to see and consider things. They feel very different from some of the self proclaimed adherents of science I've seen online nowadays, who strongly insist that their view is the only right one, and who seem to aggressively go after those with different views. Something likely went offtrack from the olden days of science to the modern age. Edited March 12 by bunnymustdie add more thoughts
bunnymustdie March 19 Author March 19 (edited) Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: I haven't been touching my tulpas with my mental hands as extensively for the past week. For part of the week, I was in an odd state of mental funk when I tried to do my visualization and imposition exercises. Later in the week, I came across an imposition guide posted here and tried out some ideas from it. Namely, I tried to look at my tulpas from the area just outside of my central vision, in the part of my peripheral vision that's right next to it. It produces a stronger presence, quicker too, one that's both touch based as well as feeling like it's closer to the edge of being visually visible. I've been messing with it for a while because it's novel and fun. The fact that it's a presence I can't directly look at feels like a downer, but I'll worry about it down the road. For now it's an interesting change of pace. I've also just realized that it shares similarity with the phenomenon I noticed where the tulpas are sort of visually present at the edge of my peripheral vision when I stared at the flame from my tea candles. I've also tried to get my emotions involved more during imposition as per the guide suggests. It does seem to help create better results. I've noticed that I can't or don't always feel like rousing myself emotionally for these exercises, however. An example is this afternoon's session, when I returned home after a shopping trip and was simply too tired to get myself emotionally excited. There was one afternoon this week when Saeya was scheduled for the evening session, which is usually considered as better by the tulpas, but she requested for the afternoon spot instead because she was apparently in good form that afternoon. Verres agreed. I indeed had a really good session with Saeya that afternoon, with a really strong presence with noticeable details via touch. I've also spent more time working on Saeya's face, head and hair this week. I went to Wal-Mart this afternoon and imposed Verres there. She had a strong presence inside the store. The crowd of other shoppers did not cause any issues for my concentration or her presence. I could clearly feel her walking about and the movement of the different parts of her body as she did so. Both tulpas are somewhat better with walking this week. I've been paying more attention to this type of movement in them. One thing I've been doing more this week was using my mental hands to touch the hands of the tulpa I was working with, usually by pressing my palms against their's and possibly interlocking our fingers. I started out doing this with Verres. She either requested this or did it of her own accord the first time. This appear to make her very happy, which I can feel, and also often lead me to have strong tingling sensations in my body that frequently also go up my neck and inside my head. These sensations are very similar to the strong bodily sensations I experienced a few months ago when I had a few strange nights where I felt very connected, almost physically so, to my tulpas (mainly Saeya) and produced spectacular imposition related results. In a way it makes sense, since pressing my mental hands against the tulpas' hands is basically forming a connection of sorts with them. I experimented with doing this with Saeya today, and it too, led to strong tingling bodily sensations in me. I will experiment with this more the upcoming week, and see if it might lead to a reliable way for me to get into that mental state where I feel strongly connected to my tulpas. Miscellaneous Stuff: I've started reading another of Jung's book this week. This one was the last one he worked on before his death. There are helpful info in it so far, ones that I was able to incorporate in the techniques I already know as well as helping me be more observant in general, and they served to produce results. I mentioned above I've noticed an odd kind of mental funk during my daily sessions. This is related to the fact that I seem to be able to produce better results with imposition during unexpected or rare trips to different places, such as downtown, a random visit to the mall with family, or even just the odd trips to Wal-Mart, versus the daily practice sessions that I undertake. I've noticed a similar sort of funk with my music playing recently, where I'd make mistakes with songs I've learned long ago, where such mistakes, especially on a consistent basis, are unusual. There were a few instances when I observed what appears to be a weird mental part of myself popping up as if making a reminder in the middle of a performance, almost going "oops, here you go" and then leading to or even flat out creating a mistake in my performance. I realized what was at work during both my imposition/visualization exercises as well as my music hobby was a mental complex of sorts. An Identity (per John Mace's definition), or something that is otherwise fairly similar to Jung's idea of a Persona, was acting up. This Identity was something along the lines of "the beginner", or "the imperfect thing still being worked on". It would act up and lead to a mistake or an otherwise bad performance during my exercises and music playing because it believed that I was a beginner at whatever I was doing, or that the thing itself, be it a musical piece or an attempt at imposition, was an imperfect or bad thing being worked on by a beginner. The mental reminder I noticed during my playing was this complex acting up and forcing its view of how my music playing ought to be on me and making it a reality. The odd mental funk during my visualization and imposition practice sessions are similarly related to or caused by it. I dissolved this complex via the Mace method with Saeya's help and the weird mental funk disappeared. It led to a really good day at my musical practice where I played at a level appropriate to my skill, with the weird mistakes and odd forgetting of sections of songs being completely gone. My imposition and visualization practice similarly had much better results - the mental funk was gone, and I felt at ease during the sessions. I'm not completely sure why this complex developed. I believe it's because during the days when I genuinely have a regular bad day with either music or imposition, it would cause a slight upset and an unconscious conclusion toward myself, an excuse along the lines of "it's ok to be bad, I'm still new at this" or "this song/imposition is still being worked on, it's fine for it to be bad". It seems like a benevolent justification for normal bad performance that might otherwise cause mental distress, but instead the justification itself became a mental complex that caused more mistakes and more unconscious frustration toward said mistakes that fed back into the complex, and ultimately forming a self feeding loop. Either way I'm glad I had it addressed. It's not the first time I've tried to deal with a mental complex similar to this, but this is the first time when I managed to have such clear insights on what I was dealing with and how it was functioning. Edited March 19 by bunnymustdie add info
bunnymustdie March 26 Author March 26 (edited) Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: I spent a few days being very preoccupied with writing stories via an AI service, and during those days my imposition sessions had been so-so. Verres has been pretty understanding about it, since I suspected the process was likely helping me get in touch with the more unconscious part of myself, and would possibly have benefits for myself or imposition in general. Saeya had been pretty quiet about it. Touching the palms of my mental hands against the tulpas' during imposition has been interesting. It can often, fairly reliably, produce tingling sensations in my torso, neck and sometimes head. When it does, it tend to benefit the imposition process by making the tulpas' presence stronger and clearer. They also seem to both like it a lot. It's not a magic pill, however, as when I tried to do it half heartedly during the days when I was preoccupied with the AI stuff it did not help as much. A certain level of focus and emotional presence on my part is required for this to work well. I continued to try to get my emotions and unconscious more involved in visualization and imposition. During one visualization exercise with Verres I was somehow reminded of an anime's ED theme. She started dancing to it. It felt mostly like she doing it, and not quite me controlling the mental visuals. She was using the dancing animations from this anime OP while music from a completely different anime ED theme was being played in my mind. This felt like something my conscious mind had little participation in, and was either her or my unconscious, perhaps a mix of both. It was fun and both of us thought it was silly. I noticed during imposition that mentally playing music, especially ones my unconscious randomly thought of (or perhaps decide on) arouses emotions in me and in turn seem to make the tulpas' presence stronger and clearer. I got the idea that I should somehow let my unconscious have more of a part in these exercises from reading Jung's stuff, and the idea that I ought to get emotions or even music involved from the imposition guide I came across and linked to last week. I've also come to realize emotions and whatnot tend to be more from the realm of the unconscious anyway, versus the conscious, logical part of my mind. All in all, it feels like getting emotions and my unconscious involved help better than trying to have a meditative state of complete mental emptiness. I've generally had very good sessions with Verres this week. There were one particular imposition session where even the smaller details to her form, like the white color of the cuffs on her sleeves, felt very clear. I use the word "felt" because I was still detecting it with a sense that felt a lot closer to touch than vision. Nonetheless, she felt very physical, as if there was an almost visible person just sitting there in the room. There were quite a few sessions with her where it felt as if a being that was straining to be visible, or physically present but just somehow not seen by me, was there. She was generally more vivid in mental visualizations, too. In contrast, I've had more mediocre sessions with Saeya. In retrospect, I have not been doing as much random emotional and seemingly unconscious inspired stuff with her during this week. Perhaps this is related. I've generally had better hugs with both tulpas in the past couple of weeks. Almost every hug with them had some level of physical tingling and other sensations present. Often times, they feel real enough for me to detect parts of my body that would be touched during a hug tingling, as well as the sensation of me holding onto something and also the impression of something cloudy quickly whisking away when the hug ends and I release my embrace. I've been taking these better hugs for granted since they improved gradually, and haven't made a note of it in my past reports. I went to a local supermarket today, one that was not Wal-Mart. I was not thinking of imposition at all, but Verres reminded me of it and sort of imposed herself in the store. Her presence was there, as well as the odd touch based sensation of the details of her body. The conscious part of my mind did not do too much to make this happen, it felt like a lot of it was either somehow her, or my unconscious automatically doing it. It wasn't the best imposition outing ever, but it was competent and surprising in the automatic nature of it. Miscellaneous Stuff: My music playing has more or less continued to be good, and the odd mental funk related to my visualization and imposition practice had stayed gone. I read an interesting concept from the current Jung book I've been reading the past week. Jung considers the unconscious as a big thing. Just as big and important as the conscious part of the mind, likely even more so. For the conscious mind to be in harmony with the unconscious is a good thing that results in mental health and fulfillment. There's a different way of looking at the unconscious or subconscious, and that is by looking at it as a small thing. A tiny, vestigial thing, an appendix to the conscious mind, if you will. With this view, one would see the unconscious as a hassle, a source of annoyances and useless archaic things to be tamed and muscled into submission. At least based on Jung's writings, this seems to be the way Freud and some others look at things. This reminds me of certain dynamics I've observed online and in tulpa related forums. There are people who unconsciously adopt the first view, either through belief or personal experience. When a person claim that they have a vast inner world they built that they can explore, or even lead to other places, it's somewhat based on the assumption of a "huge" unconscious. Likewise in claims of people having tulpas who also have their own thoughts, interact with each other without the host present and so on, there's also an assumption of this sort of huge unconscious. When a person has mental struggles and they proclaim that they somehow explored or worked with their unconscious, and perhaps neutralized a piece of buried trauma or reintegrated a personality fragment, this seems to also be based on the assumption of a vast unconscious with all sorts of worthwhile stuff in there to explore. On the other hand, when a person address their mental issue with mostly psychiatric drugs, it feels like there is an assumption of a "small" unconscious, with nothing in it that's particularly worthy of investigation or work. If one assumes oneself to have no soul and only a "small" unconscious, then it makes sense that mental issues are heavily physical based, located in the brain, in chemical imbalances or even genetic causes. A person with this sort of belief would first and foremost go with drugs to address said mental issues, and might not do much work on their own unconscious where, in my experience, a lot of mental issues and complexes do originate from. And when the drugs fail to address one's mental issues, a person with the belief of a "small" unconscious would be out of options. There's nothing worthy to investigate in the unconscious, and perhaps therefore less motivation to do some sort of therapy, be it more conventional ones or less conventional ones like the sort of trauma work described above. And of course, if this person also does not believe they have a soul, then there's nothing to work on from a spiritual perspective either. At this point, our hypothetical person is out of options. And the conclusion they have is "my brain is broken" or, if addressing a friend with similar issues, "your brain is broken, woe is you". A person who believe they have a big unconscious would have more options to explore and things to try when encountering mental issues of any sort, and if they also believe they have a soul, even more options and perspectives to go on. We have no way of proving whether which belief is ultimately right, just as we have no way of proving one way (or the other) whether people have souls or spirits. But some beliefs lead people to have more options and more ways to address challenges, rather than to be stuck in the weird learned helplessness of "my brain is broken." Edited March 26 by bunnymustdie
bunnymustdie April 2 Author April 2 (edited) Visualization Progress Report for Past Week: There hasn't been too many big changes for the past week. I've made better progress with Saeya when I took the time to touch and trace out the parts of her that I had trouble properly visualizing in my wonderland. She's now back to a more normal condition, and the weird funk I had with her the past week is gone. She's been stable in terms of her imposed presence, but the sensation of her bodily details have been more vague. I've continued having generally good sessions with Verres. She is clearer in my wonderland visualizations, both in terms of her details and her movement. My imposition sessions with her have been good, with some sessions closer to great. I've had visualization and imposition sessions with her with a focus on her legs and feet, since I've gotten used to seeing her with long stockings/leggings on to the point where I am not as familiar with her bare legs and feet. I went downtown today to take care of tax related stuff again. On the train Verres tried to sit really close to me, but her wings got in the way. She took on a more human look with the wings gone. In her setting as a character she is capable of hiding her wings away by means of an illusion of sorts, but her actions today was not in accordance of this. She simply got annoyed with the wings that got in the way of the intimacy that she wanted, and willed them to disappear. Also contrary to her setting regarding the illusion, she kept her pointy ears and horn on top of the head. With the wings out of the way, she sat a lot closer to me on the train and snuggled against me. This took place with her still being just an invisible presence, albeit one with fairly clear touch based sensations of her bodily details. When she pressed closely to me, I had a slightly numb and pleasant sensation to the body parts that she came in contact with, akin to a much weaker version of the good kind of ache one would get a day after intense physical workout. This is different from the sensation I usually get from her touches during imposition, which tend to be stronger and with noticeable tingling present. Is this difference caused by the public environment and other factors on the train? I'm not sure since I haven't had much experience having the tulpas touch me so closely in public. We came across a meal delivery robot downtown today. We walked along with it across a street with busy traffic, and followed behind it for a brief while. It was dirty and appeared lonely, as if it doesn't belong in the anachronistic streets of the city. It was like the city itself was rubbing off on it and threatened to swallow it whole. Nonetheless, it was amusing to see it. Saeya was imposed during much of my actual time downtown and on the train ride back home. She wasn't as clear as she would be, but a good hunk of the time her presence was there even though I was distracted and not trying too hard to willfully impose her. Similar to some of my experience with Verres, she seem to have a modest level of autonomy now regarding imposition. Miscellaneous Stuff: A few weeks ago I dissolved a mental complex that would try to make excuses that end up as negative unconscious beliefs whenever I make mistakes. About a day or two later I dug more into this complex, and realized that it existed because a part of me thought of mistakes as inherently bad and somehow punishment worthy. The dissolved mental complex was reacting against it in an ironic attempt to protect me, and was likely why similar types of complexes have occasionally resurfaced despite that I addressed them more than once. I addressed this belief of "mistakes = bad" as a way of preventing this sort of complexes from surfacing again, and did not think too much of it. During the past couple of weeks I've made a couple of bad purchases. They are very small 1/8 scaled ball jointed dolls that are fairly cheap. One, an impulse purchase, turned out to have bad quality issues. The other was purchased mainly because I believed its outfit can be used on an existing doll that I liked a lot, only to realize the purchased doll was smaller and its clothing was mostly unusable on the intended doll. I observed that I was not annoyed or upset with either purchases. Neither purchase bothered me at all. I was completely calm and accepting when I realized that the impulse purchase was way worse than I expected, and that the other purchase resulted in stuff that was mostly useless (one key component still fit, so it's not a total loss). Ordinarily, for most of my life as I remember, these types of bad purchases or mistakes would result in various levels of upset feelings, of money being wasted and the wrong thing being done. Simply feeling calm nothing about them has been very interesting, and makes me realize just how much of what I considered as myself, as "normal" or unchangeable are actually things that are not truly myself and within my control. I still understand and objectively know that I ought to be more prudent with these types of purchases in the future, but none of the bad feelings that typically would accompany such realizations exist - and I now understand they weren't necessary for the lesson at all. I've continued reading the Jung book for the past week. It has both good and bad things about it. Hard to say much on what I've read for the past week. Edited April 2 by bunnymustdie
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