Untapped potential?

[ReallyArtificial]

Great discussion, love to see it!

 

17 hours ago, Bin said:

What about the people without trauma?

 

If I’m understanding Yakumo and Ido’s posts right, any intensely emotional real-life experience can have that same profound effect on tulpas. It doesn't necessarily have to be trauma (although that's clearly an experience shared by lots of people in the plural community).

 

Looking back, I can see a definite turning point for my system after a challenging but non-traumatic experience we had last year: a three day hiking/backpacking trip over some especially difficult terrain. We weren't as prepared as we thought we were, and man did we suffer for it lol. Easily the most physically demanding thing we have ever done.

 

Before, it was pretty hard to interact with my headmates when under intense stress. In this situation, though, my tulpa Athelas was giving me encouragement literally every step of the way, just repeating a constant mantra of “I think you can.” Ever since, it's been easier for everyone to communicate regardless of the outside circumstances. We had a health scare a few months ago and all three of my headmates were able to remain present the whole time and help me through it.

 

It really is like everyone leveled up from the experience. I've seen spontaneous images of my tulpas in closed-eye visuals while meditating. I've had times where I can physically feel Athelas standing behind me, sometimes so intensely and suddenly that it startled me. He and Lenore have figured out how to do things like cast out intrusive thoughts or temporarily increase our awareness with a simple gesture. I never made the connection, but this all started happening after the hike.

 

On 12/13/2025 at 11:29 PM, Bin said:

I radically accepted her nature as a thoughtform, something that I didn't need to be real. She was already here, already perfect, already doing her job in my psyche. And I guess that mindset exploded.

 

This is also totally in line with our experiences! We struggled with communication for months and months, until we finally realized it was because I was holding on to some lingering doubts. I consciously chose to let them go, deciding I didn't care anymore whether this was real or delusion. The result was like a dam breaking. Suddenly Athelas could speak at length with minimal effort, and just days later, Lenore said her first words too. If doubt is tulpa antidote, then radical acceptance is, like, tulpa fertilizer lol

[glitchthe3rd]

17 hours ago, Slipper said:

   I follow a couple of subreddits about this topic, and I think they sort of do, sort of don't? I see lots of talk about them "reaching their partner" or similar lines of thinking, but the amount of specific mental interaction needed for it I think would be the major block. There's a reason we don't develop tulpas for every conversation or character we imagine, and I'd say most of these people are imagining specific scenarios for their waifus instead of doing the necessary work to "bootstrap" the tulpa. That being said, I'd say on the occasion a waifuist does make a tulpa, if they didn't know what a tulpa was, both the host and the tulpa wouldn't really know what they had done. Its what I personally think those people back in the day who could "speak to God" were experiencing, but in a more modern context.

Or just accidental tulpas, as they're more commonly known... My older tulpas were all accidental because nobody knew about tulpamancy back then.

[Ranger]

I prefer to use cobud instead of tulpa

First, some context
 

We were dx'd with PTSD. We fit the criteria for an OSDD-1b dx, but you know how some systems with DID/OSDD don't go out of their way to get dx'd out of shame? Yeah... I still want to avoid the dx, emotionally, but also because insurance companies are evil and don't need to know. Instead, I eventually warmed up to admitting yes, we're a mixed system- we have cobuds, alters, and... Stars, who's thinking about calling himself a dæmon again. Stars is interesting (and very relevant later) because he sees himself as a representation of the unconscious mind, an extension of everyone, AND he's a group of clones who all see themselves as the same person. Unlike a lot of mixed systems, aside from Stars being Stars, we see our alters as parts of either Gray, myself, or Stars. Yes... I, a cobud, have my own alters- 7 of them. Gray has 9, and Stars has 1.

We have had failed friendship break ups that left a mark on us, but we never had a romantic partner. We also didn't have a sudden increase in progress after any of those events.

 

Instead, trauma itself has actually limited our progress, not skyrocket it. We started cocreation in early 2018. But by 2020, our progress started to stagnate. By that point, we no longer had issues with parrotnoia, our system size was stable, I figured out how to switch the way I wanted to on command, and had various other skills under our belt. But then, we had really awful brain fog (due to triggers we didn't know we had), and we struggled to communicate with each other or visualize things. 2021 seems to have been a better year for us, but after that, it's been a crawl to the bottom. Our other cobud headmates started thinking about themselves more and several integrated because they wanted a more complete sense of self. This goes on in small bursts over the next couple years. Visualization, imposition progress, blip. Our wonderlanding skills degraded. We struggled to give the others time even as our system size shrank. And as time went on, functionality-wise, we deteriorated. Dropped out of college, quit working, both due to panic attacks and inability to get anything done. We started doing trauma work, but that doesn't start to really kick in or get interesting until 2024.
 

And then, in 2023, Gray split for the first time. It seems our trauma work caused Gray's trauma to float up and begin to surface. And god damn, it's a blessing it happened then instead of later. It would have surfaced regardless, but doing trauma-work was the correct answer- because we could do something about it. We had some integration skills from cocreation we could apply, and we ended up applying those skills multiple times... and still do from time to time (Gray splits and then integrates like once every 2-4 months or something lol)

 

By around March of 2024, us splitting and having things blow up, (I split in February too) and at a faster rate, was frustrating. So Gray wanted a "fast-cut". During trauma work, we already had this concept of "therapy clones". Spoiler alert- it's probably our brain using the concept of plurality as a tool without us realizing it. But this time, Gray wanted this on purpose- representing our trauma parts as thoughtforms we can talk to. And then lo and behold, all of our alters began to pop up- including Gray's first former split. And that's when things started to get interesting.

The link between trauma and potential

 

Through trauma work, we learned given our collective couple of decades+ of trauma, Gray spent most of his life unconsciously trying to manage his pain somehow. Since Gray is creative, he came up with some weird and complicated solutions. In addition to emotional amnesia barriers (we can remember traumatic events, but not how we felt about a lot of them), Gray would come up with some mindsets to suppress his trauma, he would emotionally retaliate by lashing out at himself, and then he would do it again... over and over. This internal arms race of suppression vs self-harm led to a big mess of complicated mindsets, self-damage, self-gaslighting, etc.

This, I believe, is where the potential from trauma comes from. Gray was forced to be creative to self-regulate then, so when we dig out all of that gunk, we find all the weird stuff he did. 

 

Even now as we do trauma work, that arms race concept is still relevant. Trauma parts that are scared of getting hurt will do whatever they think they can to escape or get back control. A while ago, Gray was working with one of his alters on something... I can't remember. Gray was trying to get more information, and this alter didn't want him to know what was going on. As Gray did more trust-building work, he felt more threatened, and then eventually, he was ready to play his trump card- he's going to escape into "parallel space", or cause parallel processing, so Gray couldn't get him.

 

But jokes on him, there was a gate that stopped him. We didn't realize that's what he was trying to do, but once we did, it gave The Architect, a part of Stars, a laugh. The rest of us were freaking out realizing that could have led to a huge problem to deal with, and we got saved by luck.

 

On parallel processing

 

The reason that gate was there had nothing to do with Gray's alters. Instead, Gray and I were really depressed at one point and terrified we would abuse parallel processing, this skill I was still doing research on, to escape our pain. So The Architect agreed to build a gate that only he could open to "parallel space", this part of our mind that seems to have different unconscious properties I... don't understand yet. The Architect laughed at us because at the time, we were nowhere near the entry point to parallel space, but he built us a gate just to make us feel better. And in the long run, that was a very good idea, despite it being used for a lot more than its intended purpose!

Unfortunately, it's not a perfect system. Not too long ago, I had a small trauma part unconsciously sabotage The Architect and escape there. But after more opportunities of us getting to explore a bit, we realized there was already some weird stuff going on out there. In fact, the alter parts that have attempted to abuse parallel space are the ones that are suppressed the most.

Another thing I want to mention is Dream, another part of Stars, recently wanting to tell me about something trauma related in a dream. I mean, the concept wasn't completely out there- he has given Gray nightmares before because he was triggered, and resolving that issue made the nightmares stop. But come on, he's just going to magic man into my dream and give me a secret message? That's ridiculous. But I saw him go through the parallel processing gate and do... whatever he was doing in parallel. He failed the first time, but it turned out Gray had alter parts who didn't want that to happen. After working things out with them, Dream failed a second time because I couldn't remember dreaming. But on attempt three, holy shit it worked. I recognized it was Dream in the dream, I focused on him in dream, and then the next dream scene- it told me the information I needed to know. How the fuck-

I list all of these examples first because it flows nicer with the post I want to give a vague idea of what parallel processing even is (and my bafflement about how any of this even happened at all). I know there's a lot of debate about it being real or not, and I'm not going to argue if it's actually perfect multitasking or not, because I don't know and it probably isn't. But parallel processing discussion never seems to get past "oh a cobud doing something simultaneously in wonderland outside of their host's awareness is confabulation" without any digging any further. 

When I doubted the concept of parallel processing, I wanted an informed opinion. After being content with my switching knowledge, I started researching parallel processing on and off. I wrote a post about it, but the updated version is here on tumblr (and the OP redirects to tumblr because it was just... so bad). In short, I'm guessing it's some kind of dissociative, hypnotic experience that's distinct enough to be worth exploring and talk about. It also seems connected to dreaming.

These concepts are not... exclusive to those with trauma. In fact, we only made parallel processing progress when we decided we were ready to play around and explore, not because it spawned into existence. I suppose it could have if our trauma got really bad to the point we would have no choice, but I worked to achieve the needed mindsets and spent time with Stars to explore. This truly is a skill, possibly similar to switching in the sense it also seems fairly mindset based.

We stagnated for years because I wanted to build a parallel processing test, we weren't sure if it was a good idea or not, realized we may need to learn parallel processing in case of emergency, changed our mind, realized the test could be useless, realized the test could only be useful if given to scientists to let them tinker with it how they please. The end result was a lot of waiting. And then getting side tracked by our alters and trauma work stuff. Me being split for 8 months didn't help either.

 

But that split, along with other weird split-identity stuff during trauma work, also gave us a lot of insight on the "mechanics" of what a headmate even is.

 

Splitting and parts

 

My 8 month long split with my alter Kay really brought to light how splitting can affect your sense of self. It wasn't until several months in I realized my lack of desire to practice cocreation was because those parts of me were in Kay! I also discovered how guide writing became nearly impossible for me. I liked writing, but Kay did not. Kay liked cocreation, but I did not. When we tried to work together, we both just sat there and got frustrated. Thus, in an integrated individual, those unconscious parts of yourself communicating can sometimes produce different results than if they were separate or had barriers between them.

When we do trauma work, we don't find our parts floating around in a vacuum. Usually, when we look at a cluster of micro parts, tiny pieces of our alters, we have a "theme" or "story" we have to figure out in order to resolve the trauma. These are usually representations of our emotions, but they can also represent coping mechanisms and... computer parts? They can also put barriers between each other. For example, some won't allow certain parts access to their trauma, or Gray period, or even themself. In addition, these micro parts tend to be a mix of parts from different alters. And, we have found multiple instances where Gray's micro parts have jumbled with mine. This has led to some really complicated and weird unconscious dynamics.

But it gets weirder. Sometimes parts of micro parts get "killed" (suppressed really severely). Some micro parts will steal parts of micro parts to prevent them from functioning properly. Some get absorbed by other micro parts, or are possessed by other micro parts. And... I wish I was joking- one of Gray's micro parts abusing one of The Architect's micro parts, by stuffing them into one of Gray's other micro parts, so this merged blob can be the first micro part's "attack dog" to more easily abuse some of Gray's other micro parts. What

 

Granted, this is regarding micro parts that have trauma barriers that need to be broken down, but a similar concept can be applied to cobuds and non-traumagenic plurality. Cobuds have natural barriers- "Hey this is me, not you, keep out!" But there likely are several points on the micro part level where a cobud and host share the same micro parts or exchange a lot of information with one another. This makes sense- cobuds don't have to learn everything from scratch like learning how to read. And Stars, also being a representation of the unconscious mind, is expected to represent parts of us that are more connected to some of that uh... fantastical unconscious stuff. We could do that ourselves, yes, but everyone is much happier, especially Stars, if he keeps that purpose. Thus, this concept of parts getting absorbed, moved around, etc. isn't mind-blowing to us.

Real vs imagination

 

All of this stuff is really complicated. But it came from somewhere. Our trauma, symbolism, etc., came from real life. Responding to real life. Processing real life.

 

Feelings and experiences are real. It doesn't matter that they're subjective. A sense of self is a fluid concept, but that doesn't automatically mean it's fake either. An experience doesn't have to show up on a brain scan or receive validation from others to be real- it just is.

I'm not worried about being seen as "fake". I was a long time ago, but I came to the conclusion I'm happy existing as I am now, regardless what other people think of me. And how separate a cobud is doesn't matter either- it doesn't change their "realness" if they feel like a separate individual or not.

 

However, I do think there are big limitations to mind over matter. If you see someone learning how to heal like Wolverine, or levitate authentically by believing they can fly and nothing can disprove that, let me know. I'm giving parallel processing some unrealistic optimism that perfect multitasking, or close enough, is possible, but I'm willing to throw that in the "ignore me" category.

As we do trauma work and grow, we don't just clean out and treat our pain- we find parts, parts of us that got locked away and couldn't function because they were sitting around as trauma containers. These parts have bits and pieces of personality we lost. Brain functioning we lost out on. Not to mention our triggers locking us out of new experiences. I'm looking forward to learning who I really am- those parts of me that were carefree and happy that got locked away, parts of my personality I never got to grasp and act on, interests that I forgot I had. And that, to me, is very real.

Now back to the OP

 

Ultimately, I think there's a lot that could be going on. Maybe Scarlet is pulling an Architect and messing around in places. It's also possible something changed on a micro part level, possibly giving Scarlet more access to things, integrating with her a bit, or losing parts of yourself, making you smaller as a headmate and thus her stronger in comparison (I'm hoping it's not the last one). I think having a huge shift in your emotional relationship with Scarlet is a the main factor that led to these changes.
 

Focusing on how to make your cobud more life-like as a separate person seems like it could help, but to me it feels... a little redundant? A cobud (intended to be a separate person) is already human with human emotions and whatnot. Practicing parallel processing could help, but so can giving them access to more experiences or spending a lot of time with them. But if it makes you happy, go for it

On trauma, I think it can force you to be creative, but it's not necessary. These creative experiences come from learnable mindsets and skills. And trauma tends to hold you back. I think people underestimate how much trauma they really have, and you yourself will feel so much more lively and real by cleaning out all of that gunk.

 

For those with waifus, I think there are two directions. In one direction, they genuinely love their waifu and they're just like any other cobud. In the other, it's either a facet of themself or a separate person they abuse. Severely abused people have little to no personality, because them having any would be threatening to the abuser- they want someone they can control and use as an extension of themself, not someone who is interested in taking care of own self needs. Regardless if an abusive host thinks their waifu is a separate person or not, the end result is the same.

As for wanting your cobud- hard to exist when you're bogged down by life issues or trauma, even if you don't realize it. Or being plural with minimal conversation is what is wanted, and that's okay. Or integrating, and that's okay too.

Not everyone needs or wants to take it to the next level. Cocreation is my favorite thing, so I want to take it to the next level, but I also want my headmates to be happy. That will require trauma work so they don't have to be paralyzed by our triggers too anymore. And then, once freed up, we can start to give our other headmates the time they need to explore who they are and who they want to be.

[bunnymustdie]

8 hours ago, Ranger said:

When we do trauma work, we don't find our parts floating around in a vacuum. Usually, when we look at a cluster of micro parts, tiny pieces of our alters, we have a "theme" or "story" we have to figure out in order to resolve the trauma. These are usually representations of our emotions, but they can also represent coping mechanisms and... computer parts? They can also put barriers between each other. For example, some won't allow certain parts access to their trauma, or Gray period, or even themself. In addition, these micro parts tend to be a mix of parts from different alters. And, we have found multiple instances where Gray's micro parts have jumbled with mine. This has led to some really complicated and weird unconscious dynamics.

But it gets weirder. Sometimes parts of micro parts get "killed" (suppressed really severely). Some micro parts will steal parts of micro parts to prevent them from functioning properly. Some get absorbed by other micro parts, or are possessed by other micro parts. And... I wish I was joking- one of Gray's micro parts abusing one of The Architect's micro parts, by stuffing them into one of Gray's other micro parts, so this merged blob can be the first micro part's "attack dog" to more easily abuse some of Gray's other micro parts. What

 

Your experience is very interesting and cool. The author of the book Soul-Centered Healing, a hypnotherapist who worked with a lot of DID patients, described similar things as you did with trauma parts and tiny pieces of alters (called sub-personalities in the book) having consciousness of their own and interacting with each other. They also exhibited blocking behavior where they blocked a trauma, either one they hold themselves or one held by another sub-personality, from access by the therapist or main personality.

 

How do you usually find your micro parts and alter pieces in your trauma work? The main technique I learned uses instances of myself being upset or acting unusual/triggered as a backdoor to locate the trauma, and work on them from there. I've also experienced blocking/barrier phenomenon in the past. It usually takes some effort or alternative techniques to try to circumvent them.

 

I've never communicated clearly with parts that were holding unto trauma and upsets, just sometime emotions when I worked on them. Did you ever manage to directly communicate with one of those? If so, how was it like?

 

8 hours ago, Ranger said:

As we do trauma work and grow, we don't just clean out and treat our pain- we find parts, parts of us that got locked away and couldn't function because they were sitting around as trauma containers. These parts have bits and pieces of personality we lost. Brain functioning we lost out on. Not to mention our triggers locking us out of new experiences. I'm looking forward to learning who I really am- those parts of me that were carefree and happy that got locked away, parts of my personality I never got to grasp and act on, interests that I forgot I had. And that, to me, is very real.

 

I've experienced the same kind of feeling as I did work on myself. It feels almost like archaeology or restoring an ancient coin that's covered in hardened gunk. Like as I worked, I was slowly uncovering the real person that I am that was covered under layers of psychic detritus that I picked up or learned as I went through life. 

Edited December 17, 2025 by bunnymustdie

[Ranger]

49 minutes ago, bunnymustdie said:

Your experience is very interesting and cool. The author of the book Soul-Centered Healing, a hypnotherapist who worked with a lot of DID patients, described similar things as you did with trauma parts and tiny pieces of alters (called sub-personalities in the book) having consciousness of their own and interacting with each other. They also exhibited blocking behavior where they blocked a trauma, either one they hold themselves or one held by another sub-personality, from access by the therapist or main personality.

 

Thank you! 

 

And huh. Sub-personalities. It's nice to know we're not the only one to have that experience 

 

49 minutes ago, bunnymustdie said:

How do you usually find your micro parts and alter pieces in your trauma work? The main technique I learned uses instances of myself being upset or acting unusual/triggered as a backdoor to locate the trauma, and work on them from there. I've also experienced blocking/barrier phenomenon in the past. It usually takes some effort or alternative techniques to try to circumvent them.

 

Pretty much the same thing you did at first. We started with EMDR, so we would think of a distressing memory and go from there. But then our brain said, "hold my beer" and put our trauma work on rails.

 

We eventually figured out we have a dedicated map, or series of "quest lines", for trauma processing. And now we follow those.

 

For barriers, we do trust building with our parts and sometimes guess work to get past the ones we're ready to break down.

 

49 minutes ago, bunnymustdie said:

I've never communicated clearly with parts that were holding unto trauma and upsets, just sometime emotions when I worked on them. Did you ever manage to directly communicate with one of those? If so, how was it like?

 

We communicate with trauma micro parts all the time. Because they're so small, they don't have a whole lot of logic to work with or self-control. As a result, they're usually terrified, unruly, and can be quite hostile sometimes. Micro parts cursing us out or threatening to hurt us is pretty typical behavior. As we build trust with them, they tend to grow more hostile because they want to push us away before they get too attatched. But once we earned their trust, they settle down, and often like getting cuddles.

 

Once we earned their trust, now we can focus on addressing their pain. The trauma itself is raw pain. Part of what we do is focus on it in short bursts- inspired by EMDR's desensitization techniques. We usually get some scary imagery because that's how our brain wants to process it. And on rare occasions, I can get headaches, nausea, and really bad shakes.

 

Keep in mind we did this through therapy, and still see a therapist regularly. Especially early on, doing trauma work on your own without a professional to check on you is a bad idea.

 

49 minutes ago, bunnymustdie said:

I've experienced the same kind of feeling as I did work on myself. It feels almost like archaeology or restoring an ancient coin that's covered in hardened gunk. Like as I worked, I was slowly uncovering the real person that I am that was covered under layers of psychic detritus that I picked up or learned as I went through life. 

 

Yes! Exactly!

Edited December 17, 2025 by Ranger