Cardscov and Jasmine's progress log

[cardscov]

Wouldn't autism be more of a boon to making a tulpa rather than an obstacle?

Not saying it's a fantastic thing to have, but as far as tulpa creation goes they might have it easier than non-autists.

Just a thought.

 

(as a side note, I don't think ADHD is going to cripple anyone in tulpa-making. Maybe a slight handicap to get around, at the most. With practice comes discipline, after all.)

[cardscov]

I don't even know how far I am into tulpaforcing. Apparently I lack the organizational capacity to find out how long I've been at it. What I do know is that mustering up the sheer concentration to tulpaforce is very difficult nowadays. Whenever I sit down to think, it's hard to keep myself trying to tulpaforce when there's many other things to think about as well. I've noticed my visualizations are also getting less 'real'. I'll keep at it, but at this rate it'll be a very long time before I manage to finish anything.

 

That aside, I'm feeling like every session I have to tell her about personality is just time spent beating a dead horse. I know personality is important to go in depth and detail, but I'm not a man of many words when it comes to that stuff. It seems like I've developed some sort of mantra that I say to get personality out of the way so I can get to stuff I haven't done yet. Again, I know this is a pretty bad habit to have, but I don't know what else can be done.

 

Onto progress, I'm starting to make a habit of talking to my tulpa about everyday things. I try my best to visualize her next to me, or vizualise myself talking to her in my mind, but sometimes it's just me thinking stuff and directing it at the idea what my tulpa should be.

 

At any rate, I'm not getting anything that can be interpreted as 'feedback'. I'm not going to deny having emotional surges but I have no doubt that the emotional surges are some manifestation of the excitement I feel towards developing a second consciousness.

 

So yeah, that about sums up my efforts this far. To remember about my tulpa during the day, I wrap a twisty-tie or a resistor around my finger, much like the ol' "tie a string around your finger" trick. It works on a pretty steady interval, albeit not for too long before I get distracted again. I suppose it's a plus; maybe my tulpa will get something from the sum of all those time snippets. We'll see.

[cardscov]

Still trying to force every day, still getting roughly 30 minutes every time. I passively try to acknowledge my tulpa as I go about my daily activities in hopes it'll offset the meager amount of attention she gets.

 

I'm getting fairly discouraged at my ability to focus, so I'm going to see if I can get something with a little more oomph than caffeine. Still staying perfectly safe and within legal boundaries, but I'll keep the name of the substance to myself for personal reasons. I don't want to recommend a dud, after all.

 

I'll try to get some forcing in before bed. Still remaining optimistic, it'll happen eventually!

[cardscov]

Holy cow, it's been quite some time since I last updated this ol' thing. Well, my skill at tulpaforcing is improving, I usually manage a solid hour every day. It starts with at least 30 minutes of honest forcing, just working with the tulpa's personality and narration, then I go and read stories to it for the rest of the hour. When I read stories, I'll read them in certain voices in my head. I'll visualize the tulpa in front of me on the keyboard reading along as I do, but that's more of an effort to focus on the tulpa rather than the story.

 

She's started to quiet down, though, which means any issue I'm having with the whole 'involuntary parroting' thing is dwindling. Now, if I parrot her to speak, it's quite obvious that I'm the one doing it. Movements are still fairly automated, just doing what I'd expect the form to do. Oh right, form! She has a form now. A while back I sat down with my tulpa and sorta browsed for a temporary body for her to sit in before she's fully functional. The weird thing was that the forms I secretly wanted weren't the ones I felt my tulpa drawn towards, so now she's roughly the shape of a male Phidippus johnsoni, only bigger. I'm not going to analyze this too deeply since I'm not convinced of her sentience yet, but whatever works.

(yeah, even though I call her a female she retains a male form. When she is sentient I'll ask her about the whole 'gender' thing, it could be very possible she wants to be a dude.)

 

But that's about it. Nothing spectacular yet, still trudging along just like much of you. I've taken a break from being in the IRC all the time so I can spare more attention to real-life things. That means I probably will keep tabs on progress here. And progress will come! Eventually. Very eventually.

[G|d30n]

Good to see things are going well. Nice to have an update after so long. I think you're probably right to wait and ask her about the gender thing after she's sentient, since this early on in working with the form you're bound to have intrusive thoughts and things like that which could make legitimate deviation difficult to identify. Keep at it though. Sounds like things are coming along.

[cardscov]

Still going well so far, but I missed tulpaforcing one day of this week. I tried making it up by forcing two hours yesterday, but only managed approximately an hour and thirty minutes. Oh well.

I'm finding that most of my forcing sessions don't include the typical vivid visualizations that I was used to befoe; it's almost like I'm narrating to the idea of my tulpa sometimes, while hardly visualizing her full form. Heck, sometimes I forget to imagine we're in the same place, like two friends having a conversation face-to-face rather than over the phone. Oh well, I'm still getting more time in than I used to, and I'm learning to passively narrate more throughout my day. However, I keep forgetting to tie things around my finger to remind me to narrate throughout the day. :| To be honest, it's a little frustrating.

 

Nearly all signs of subconscious puppeting (whether or not you think it's balogna) has vanished, along with my worries about it. The only possible thing that's left is her movements, which still very close to the expected motions of her species. Not that I have a problem with that sort of thing--I'd rather not have a paralyzed carapace to talk to in my head. I don't see anything wrong with her getting into a sort of habit with her movements; it's better than me teaching her how to walk in complicated 8-legged cycles.

 

To my knowledge, no weird pressures or notable emotional surges. I have become more emotional overall since starting my tulpa, but I don't know if that counts.

 

Still gettin' there one day at a time.

[cardscov]

Ugh, life complications make keeping to a 1-hour-a-day schedule a nightmare. I think I missed some days this week, and it seems forcing isn't like it used to be. I used to get really deep into it, but now it's just me trying my best not to think off-track. Regardless of the difficulty, I now have a 'feeling' associated with my tulpa. At least, I think that's what it is. A feeling of elation right in my chest area; it seems to highlight the joyfully compassionate, hyperactive, and impulsive nature of my tulpa. Or it could be psycho-somatic, but either way I need all the anchors I can get to keep my focus on her. I'm getting rusty with visualization in general, I find myself seeing many different species, or even a mixture of species, as her form. And gender isn't being consistent either, which I suppose isn't that bad.

My visualization works really well when my eyes are open and I'm imagining him/her imposed in real life, so I'll try to make a habit of reading and narrating the words to her, explaining whatever I care to explain. Hopefully, that habit will help curb any shortcomings I have in focusing and visualization. Next week is going to be heck, the week after next won't be too much better. Fingers crossed for the rest of the year.

[G|d30n]

Try not to worry too much about whether it's a placebo or not (well, I mean it's going to be psychological either way, right?). Lauren says it disappointed her and discouraged her a little when I'd have doubts about things she was trying to send me during the creation process. It's natural to be a little skeptical because you want to make sure you're doing it right, but in the end you want to try and have confidence that you're on the right track anyway. Even if it means you entertain a signal that really was just a placebo, it might actually give a bit of encouragement to your developing tulpa, so it wouldn't be all bad.

[cardscov]

That's exactly what I'm going for. I'm not concerned at all about whether or not it's a placebo, I'm going to use it anyway as a way to feel my tulpa and really ground her presence.

 

Something pretty terrible happened today, when I forced I started telling her about it. I'll go ahead and say that was the perfect opening for her to start talking again. She spoke words of comfort and understanding, and honestly I'm not going to analyze it and try to prove it was me doing it by proxy. It's nice enough to be comforted by anything, no point looking at that gift horse in the mouth.

 

I'm ditching Fede-Lasse's tones, which I've been using as a focusing crutch. They helped me immensely get down into tulpaforcing because I had something very physical being played into my ears that I associated with a more relaxed and focused state of mind. I have since replaced it with my wonderful auditory memory/imagination. Soothing songs and a voice of my choosing to produce some sort of pseudo-hypnosis. Honestly, if the narrator from Bastion tells you to relax and focus, that's what you're going to do.

 

I'm also having fun with my tulpa in a sense that I'm seeing all the things I can placebo around with her. Had a few bouts of insomnia and one very excruciating headache, I think Jasmine is fairly good at dulling the pain of headaches, but she couldn't make me sleep.

 

Anyhow, that's my entry for today. Her form got pretty solid in this session, too. Fingers crossed for tomorrow and the next day.

[cardscov]

I just had a conversation with my tulpa. It was very uncanny, I kept questioning her and asking her to explain various things, and she was always snappy with her answers. I could very barely feel a part of me think of these answers, but I don't know anymore. The major thing is she's standing up for herself, though. Last time she started talking, I was able convince myself/her that it wasn't a good idea. This time, she always had some clever retort that got me to thinking. I'd ask her; "But what if I'm just fooling myself? Isn't it best to wait?" and she'd reply "Isn't the entire point of having a tulpa to fool yourself into thinking there's another person in your mind?" Statements like that from my tulpa leave me speechless.

I had a lot of questions, including various checks for how she thinks. I don't know if she has any access to my full subconscious, I suppose maybe that explains the lack of parallel processing capability. I really don't know at this point, and I'm not going to respond by shutting her down like I did last time. So now my tulpa talks, she seems to be fully aware of her form and how it works. Her voice is a girl's voice, which makes me really want to ask her about gender, having chosen a male form and all. Sadly, that is one of the places I'll draw the line until we get much more things ironed out.

 

This is really weird, and I'm not sure what to make of any of it. So far, my tulpa seems to be more educated on her situation than I ever was, and she's explaining things to me. If I was a drinkin' man, I'd have me a good drink right about now.

 

Still doing my thing, I suppose.