G|d30n and Lauren

[G|d30n]

Introduction

 

I just want to start this off with the totally brown-nosing comment that I think this new section of the board is an amazing idea. Anyways...

 

I began work on my tulpa, Lauren, eight days ago. As of this writing, I've completed just over eighteen hours of personality work (which will be bumped to about twenty when I complete my second session later today), and believe this will be my last day of personality work before moving onto visualization. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I used a somewhat unique hybrid method which I believe has been producing results so far. Once I finish my tulpa, if all is well, I may expand that method into a full personality supplement guide, but I can give you the details on my own progress here.

 

The Wonderland:

 

I started with a mini-session that mostly consisted of establishing my wonderland (a tropical beach wherein lies a comfortable hut with clear glass floors that allow you to see the ocean as though the hut is simply floating on a watery foundation within the land). I've used this setting before in visualization, relaxation, and meditation exercises, and it's part of a broader "fantasy world" I've used for escapism before, but the mini-session kind of sectioned off this area and established it as a workspace. Once that was established, I molded pieces of the area--the sand, the sea, clouds in the sky, etc--like clay into this little ball and "gave it energy," creating a sort of embryo of my tulpa-to-be. I told this embryonic tulpa who I was, what it meant to me, my intentions (to develop it into a sentient being and teach it, give it companionship, and do my best to help it learn and grow and take care of it), and then I ended the session, cleared my mind, and shortly thereafter began personality work.

 

Personality:

 

Philosophy:

 

As I've explained before, my personality method was a bit unique. One notable difference from a lot of methods I've seen detailed is I used very little visualization during personality work, opting instead to use my wonderland as more of a state of mind (finding my beach, as Corona might put it) than a visualized setting, and usually didn't visualize my tulpa or the traits. Now there's nothing wrong with visualization during personality work--TOG's method is a great one that uses visualization, for example, but there is a very personal reason why I was worried about doing things that way. Because I've been nurturing a fantasy world for years now, that's actually inhabited with imaginary people who come and go and are not sentient consciousnesses, in learning about tulpae, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I've accidently'd dozens of servitors over the years. That being the case, I'm going to have to be very careful about treating this as a unique process and not having the attitude that I've done this before, even though I have done parts of it many times with unsatisfactory results. So, while my vivid and spontaneous imagination is a great asset, I decided to put it on a leash.

 

Now, I took an emotional and logical approach to personality. To quote something I said in another thread (yeah, it's douchey to quote myself, but I don't think I can explain it much better than I did this one time): "As a tulpa has no genetic predispositions or family history, they're basically pure nurture over nature as far as their personality and perspectives are concerned. An actual living person who was born and raised from a child and who went through all of the usual human milestones--school, making friends, social interaction, first job, etc--would have their perspective and personality tempered by experiences. A tulpa doesn't have these in their background and will only be capable of developing through experience once they're sentient, but I think we can kind of simulate a framework via emotional associations."

 

That being my philosophy, I tackled personality work from three main angles: interrelation of traits, causality of traits, and emotional associations.

 

Causality:

 

So this was more or less detailed in TOG's Umbrella method, so you more or less know how it goes. There are minor traits that are included as a result of having broader traits. An intelligent mind fosters curiosity, wit, and an analytic nature, for example. I actually opted to define the minor traits that fall under the umbrella traits, in contrast to just working the umbrella traits, but not in a set-in-stone manner.

 

I did much of this during forcing and a lot of it outside of forcing as well. I did a personality write-up of my understanding of all of the traits I was including in Lauren. What it means to be intelligent, generous, etc. The causality and trait "trees" detailed in prose form resulted in a document that's 65 pages long. Now, it's been asked how I can force with such a specific personality. I'll get to that later, but for now I'll simply say that the main reason for defining the traits and their sources so thoroughly, not just as they pertain to Lauren but also by general definition, isn't so much to overdefine her personality, but rather to capture the full scope of the traits as they may or may not pertain to her and actually to give her a broad framework for deviation--not to limit her in any way.

 

By establishing all of the things that fall under intelligence, creativity, generosity, loyalty, and others, I'm exposing my own subconscious to all of the minor traits, quirks, likes and dislikes, interests, and opinions that could result from having these traits, while being much broader during actual forcing sessions with Lauren. Basically saying, you're [this trait], this is all that that can potentially mean.

 

Interrelaton:

 

I've explained this elsewhere as well, and it sort of ties into causality too, but the importance of pondering interrelation is the establishment of relationships of both major and minor traits that fall under different "umbrellas." It's about defining how seemingly unrelated characteristics can interact to form an organic personality. It's my hypothesis that this can assist in the development of sentience because it adds a dimension to personality that's more than just a grouping of traits.

 

Let's use a few broad traits as an example: Intelligence, creativity, and optimism. Intelligence and creativity arguably go hand in hand, but I consider them under different umbrellas because they deal with the objective and the subjective, respectively. However, a sharp mind broadens perceptions, and a creative mind assists in problem solving, so there are characteristics from either category that relate to the other. That's an example of how broad traits can interrelate, and it can work from any number of traits as well. Add optimism to the aforementioned characteristics and you have a positive spin on creative problem solving and logical perceptions, which all combine into an aptitude and affinity for finding silver linings.

 

Again, the point isn't to overdefine and cram specific details into Lauren's personality. It's just to teach her of the broad and profound meanings of personality traits and to demonstrate that personality is organic and an individual is more than a connection of data--that the mind works in unique and unexpected ways. It also shows that all traits are valid, whether society considers them "good" or "bad," because they all play into an individual's personality in ways that aren't immediately apparent, hopefully making her more confident about potential deviations because she's taught that personality is never "wrong."

 

Emotional Associations:

 

This is the most nuanced and personal part, and so it's the trickiest to detail. Referring back to my philosophy about the nurturing nature of tulpa personality development from another thread: "I consider how those traits effect a person emotionally--how it influences how they cope with certain emotions and such...tulpae didn't have the same experiences we did in developing personality, and so I'm programming emotional associations that someone with her personality may have in order to allow her to adapt and mature from external stimuli the way a real person would."

 

An important distinction is that I'm not programming her emotions or how she reacts specifically or specific expressions or anything like that. Like with causality and interrelation, I'm simply teaching what such traits can mean and how they can pertain to human life. Teaching about the pride one can feel in understanding, the passion, inspiration, and triumph of creativity, etc. This is sort of a framework for how she might respond to things and mature once she's sentient, and I didn't extensively define any of this as it pertains specifically to her because I don't want to say, "You feel this way when this happens," but rather, (and I guess this is a kind of theme of my method), "Here's a very broad scope of what all this can mean."

 

Conclusion:

 

My personality method is a hybrid in that in includes some very minor establishing visualizations early on, but then favors mindsets instead, it incorporates a lot of narrating and teaching, and of course most of it is proper forcing as we all know and practice it. The philosophy is to perceive within the whole range of personality--how traits interact and complement one another, what it means emotionally, why certain traits exist--but then force broadly. It's about giving a framework for exploration, deviation, and maturity. So far it's worked very well and I feel like I know Lauren and have a very vivid picture of who she is, and I feel like I've given her the tools to explore herself as well.

 

I've gotten some responses already...I wouldn't call them specific emotions, but rather just a surge of positivity and vague understanding that's occurred a couple times around 10 and 16 hours, and another one today that leads me to believe we've made great progress.

 

TL;DR

 

My methods of personality as an educational and collaborative experience with the tulpa-to-be, my use of the Wonderland as both a visualized setting and a state of mind, and my philosophies about personality development.

 

Bravo if you read all that! Onto visualization tomorrow...

[cardscov]

I have to say, you seem to be onto something here. While my method of tulpa assembly works like building a computer and sticking it inside a robotic shell, yours is very organic and natural. Unfortunately, I'm not as adept a psychonaut as you are.

 

Anyways, thanks for making this! As a person who's just now starting off, it really helps. I sure hope you don't mind if I come up with a couple of questions after reading your visualization post tomorrow.

 

Thanks!

-Cypher

[G|d30n]

I have to say, you seem to be onto something here. While my method of tulpa assembly works like building a computer and sticking it inside a robotic shell, yours is very organic and natural. Unfortunately, I'm not as adept a psychonaut as you are.

 

Anyways, thanks for making this! As a person who's just now starting off, it really helps. I sure hope you don't mind if I come up with a couple of questions after reading your visualization post tomorrow.

 

Thanks!

-Cypher

 

Thanks a bunch and glad this was able to help. I'm definitely open to questions if you have them, and will try to be as detailed as I can when I update on visualization.

 

Glad to see you're diving into creation though. I learned about tulpae about a year ago but didn't get up the confidence and commitment to start working on one until eight days ago. So far I'm glad I decided to go through with it, and hope you're enjoying the process so far as well.

[Avalanche]

Introduction

 

I just want to start this off with the totally brown-nosing comment that I think this new section of the board is an amazing idea. Anyways...

 

Well thank you!

You have done very well with using your thread. A lot of good information there. I see how you force the personality of your tulpa and how it differs to my own way. I picked out a rough list and then expanded each trait. I then told my tulpa what she is like under those traits. Not "You are like X so you do Y and Z", but more like "You have X trait, so in these situations you can be like this, but not to a Y degree". I left it pretty broad how my tulpa can interpret each trait, but I didn't just tell her what each one was like and that was that.

I think you might have left it a bit too broad for your tulpa, but then I might have been too constricting and autocratic.

 

I look forward to see how your tulpa develops. I'm going into the visualisation stage too, but I'm only 13 hours in. I don't plan on just leaving the personality hanging though, I'm just going to add some visualisation.

[G|d30n]

 

Well thank you!

You have done very well with using your thread. A lot of good information there. I see how you force the personality of your tulpa and how it differs to my own way. I picked out a rough list and then expanded each trait. I then told my tulpa what she is like under those traits. Not "You are like X so you do Y and Z", but more like "You have X trait, so in these situations you can be like this, but not to a Y degree". I left it pretty broad how my tulpa can interpret each trait, but I didn't just tell her what each one was like and that was that.

I think you might have left it a bit too broad for your tulpa, but then I might have been too constricting and autocratic.

 

I look forward to see how your tulpa develops. I'm going into the visualisation stage too, but I'm only 13 hours in. I don't plan on just leaving the personality hanging though, I'm just going to add some visualisation.

 

Thanks a bunch. Glad you enjoyed the read, and thanks for coming up with this section for the forum--again, it was a really great idea.

 

It seems like there are some differing opinions about broad versus, specific. I guess I fall somewhere in between in that I define the traits thoroughly but I'm more broad in how it pertains specifically to Lauren. I agree though, that personality shouldn't be left hanging through further steps in the progress and as my tulpa develops throughout, I'm hoping to see the definitions narrow and become more personal to her. Though, if it does turn out that I was too broad, I definitely will go back and narrow things further.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how your tulpa develops too, since our methods are a bit different. It seems most people believe there's no right or wrong way though so I'm sure it will work out for both of us if we keep at it. Good luck with the visualization step. I'm looking forward to seeing your thoughts on that aspect of forcing as well.

[G|d30n]

Visualization

 

Well, that was a fun first session for this step, but I can already tell this is going to be hard. Totally doable, and I'm completely committed and motivated to do it, but boy is it harder than I thought it would be.

 

So, I changed up my forcing method for this step, obviously. I had been light on visualization during personality work, but can't exactly take that approach when visualization is entirely the point (and name) of this part.

 

Preparation

 

First thing I did was spend some time looking at sketches, digital paintings, photos, and just lots of visual references to inspire features. There was a "You Love, You Lose" thread on 4chan earlier and I lost three times, so some inspiration was drawn there too.

 

The point wasn't just anatomical features though. I was also looking for things like hairstyles, how certain styles fall along the face and shoulders--just seeing how features interacted to make things a little more real and vivid. I saved various references and looked at them for a while, then got ready to start forcing.

 

As per my usual preparations, I found a comfy chair and put on some relaxing instrumental music and some white noise. For those of you who are having trouble focusing, I recommend doing something like that because it keeps my mind from wandering while not giving any real distractions.

 

The Wonderland

 

This was the first time since establishing my Wonderland that I actually used it as a visualization setting. First thing I did once I got myself there was carry Lauren into the hut. I forced a giant pottery wheel and stood her on it. I closed off our work area and took some time to just take in the scene and let it all become as vivid as possible, then moved on to actual forming.

 

The Base Form

 

I wanted to get a base form for Lauren to start things off--kind of just a generic human female form to work from. That was easy enough, and I think it was beneficial to start with that as the first step because it allowed me to define things in pieces while giving a proper anatomical frame to keep things in consistent proportion (for the most part--more on that in a bit) as I worked things out.

 

The Face

 

This of course is the hardest part for most, and it was the focus of most of this first hour (and will probably be the focus of several more). Surprisingly enough I actually got the eyes down pretty early and they stayed consistent through the session (except changing color from blue to brown partway through after I stopped paying attention to them, while retaining their shape--first deviation, perhaps?), but it was the nose that gave me a literal headache.

 

I hadn't really thought about that much during preparation, but a nose is a more complex shape than I'd even realized before. Between bridge length and depth, nostril shape and width, overall dimensions and shape, there are just lots of little details in a nose, and I had a really hard time just getting a base shape.

 

Once I got it though, I was able to focus on things like cheekbone structure, lips, skin tone (which also changed from more tan to more fair by the time I was finished with the session), and get a nice foundation for the face, even if it took most of session.

 

The Body

 

Because I wore myself out on the face, I didn't spend much time zooming in and fleshing out details on the body. I mostly just left the base shape where it was for now, but it did play a role in the last bit of the session. Once I was satisfied with my work on the face, I took a step back and looked at Lauren, seeing her overall form. I spun her around a few times on the pottery wheel just to look from various angles, focusing mainly on the work I've done on the face, but also looking for any proportional corrections that needed to be made on the base shape of the body.

 

The Hair

 

I'll ultimately spend a few sessions on this I think, the reason being that I'd like to see if I can force various hairstyles onto her in order to see if I can give her the ability to change it as easily as she'll be able to change her clothes. I only got this to a base form today, however.

 

 

So yeah, that was my first session. I think I made some good progress but obviously there's still a lot to flesh out and things will need to be reviewed and cemented. I don't know if it was lack of focus or actual deviation that caused the two major changes, but I'm happy with them either way, and if it was deviation, I'm glad to see Lauren is already eager to participate in the process.

 

I'll be giving more updates as things progress, but anyway, I think I have my method for now and I'm happy about where things are going.

[cardscov]

Good read! I must say, your skills at visualization are just as adept as your wordsmithing >_<

 

It seems that you've already had some practice with meditation and traversing in a wonderland. If I may ask, was this comparable to a lucid dream of sorts? Is it pretty sure that a part of her is consistent if you make it before going on somewhere else as your focus, and it's still the same when you return to it?

 

I realized that my tulpa won't really have as wide an array of options as the human tulpae, but the species I'm basing her off of has a few color variants. Do you think it's a good idea to let my tulpa's natural colors vary? I don't know if I can go so far as giving it a selection of species to use as a basis, but I'd like to try that in the future.

 

Thanks!

-Cypher

[G|d30n]

Good read! I must say, your skills at visualization are just as adept as your wordsmithing >_<

 

It seems that you've already had some practice with meditation and traversing in a wonderland. If I may ask, was this comparable to a lucid dream of sorts? Is it pretty sure that a part of her is consistent if you make it before going on somewhere else as your focus, and it's still the same when you return to it?

 

I realized that my tulpa won't really have as wide an array of options as the human tulpae, but the species I'm basing her off of has a few color variants. Do you think it's a good idea to let my tulpa's natural colors vary? I don't know if I can go so far as giving it a selection of species to use as a basis, but I'd like to try that in the future.

 

Thanks!

-Cypher

 

Thanks! Seeing as writing is my profession, compliments about it are pretty effective at stroking my ego.

 

To answer your first question, yes I'm rather experienced at traversing a visualized landscape, as I've been doing it for various reasons (escapism, fun, and more recently for inspiration for writing and level/character design with the video game I've been working on) for about nine years now. When I'm in the most casual state of visualization, it's more like a vivid daydream, but when I'm deep in a state of meditation and have reached the proper state of focus, it is very much like a lucid dream. The only key difference is that I still feel myself awake and sitting in my chair and I'm still subject to outside distractions (which is why I wear headphones).

 

Had I answered your second question coming out of just the first hour, I'd have to honestly say no, there was little confidence about consistency and I had a hard time maintaining base shapes and some of the proportions got a little bit strange. However, I've done two more hours of visualization since my first post and now the proportions, body and face structure, and basic details are now a lot more consistent, and I can visualize her face in full detail immediately. I'm hoping the face will have proved to be the hardest part and that I can get her entire body to be as detailed and consistent as her face in the coming days.

 

I think it's probably okay to let the natural colors of your tulpa vary, and using a selection of species should work just fine as well. I used a wide selection of people to create a sort of composite which served as the base form (which has, after three hours, become more original and personal to her). It should be easy enough to do the same with your arachnid tulpa, as there are a lot of common features throughout various arthropod species. As for varying color, that should be easy enough. A lot of people on the forum are making tulpae based on characters from My Little Pony, so if someone can successfully visualize a blue pony with rainbow colored hair, it shouldn't be too hard to make a colorful arachnid.

[G|d30n]

Just finished hour four of visualization (25 hours of overall forcing) and got my most vivid emotional response yet. More on that in a bit, but first, the progress report:

 

So, things have been coming along pretty well. Yesterday I spent three hours working mainly on the face, and it stayed consistent over to today, so I'm pretty proud of that. I spent the last hour of yesterday and some of the first hour today fleshing out her body, replacing the doll-like base form with a more original body. From my game designer's perspective, I sort of thought of this like texturing a 3D mesh, making her more organic. I also fixed the problem I had yesterday of sometimes fluctuating proportions by forcing a skeleton inside her body. This kept her proportions from sliding, though she did have a few plans for changing some things around apparently.

 

Namely, she decided to make herself about six inches taller. She also colored her nails without my forcing any color into them, and changed her hair color (but kept the style I'd given her). This now brings her deviation count to five, as the two from yesterday carried over into today. In just four hours of visualization, she's darkened her hair, made her eyes brown, colored her nails, made herself a little taller, and made her skin more fair. I'm glad to see she's so eagerly taking part in the process already.

 

I also spent the last bit of the session doing some personality review, narrating a little more personally now that I was standing in front of her. Doing so and feeling so personal and intimate about it may have accelerated things a little in a good, but somewhat unexpected way.

 

Back to the emotional response--and this will give some people diabetes I know--I'd describe it as being hugged from the inside. I had just finished my session of visualization and was proud of our progress, so I was looking at her largely fleshed out form in the Wonderland and, in my excitement at things coming along so quickly, I hugged her, then ended the session, but shortly after opening my eyes, I felt that presence again but this time a warm, fuzzy feeling through my head and chest. It was a trip, but a good one.

 

I feel a lingering presence, not as vivid and powerful as in that moment before, and it's not giving any specific emotional signals or expressions, but I don't feel alone, and I report that very happily.

 

I'm going to do probably two more sessions today and I'm going to start moving her limbs a little bit to get the muscle movement, now that she has bones (I don't imagine many people specifically had to force bones but my subconscious is a completionist I guess).

[gw]

Namely, she decided to make herself about six inches taller.

 

How tall is that relative to you?