Longbow's Journal

[longbow]

Hello Tulpa.info! You can call me Longbow. I've been a tulpamancer for a while, but until now I've mostly posted in the tulpa threads on 4chan's /mlp/ board. I originally didn't see any need to keep a permanent record of my tulpamancing experiences, but lately I've decided that having a journal to look back on would be kind of cool, so here we are.

 

My tulpa's name is Vanessa. She's a little over two months old now and takes the form of a pony from MLP:FiM (very original, I know). She was initially given the form of a bat pony that looked very similar to the one in this picture:

 

Since then she has deviated her form to become a gray unicorn with a blue mane and amber eyes:

 

Her mane and tail are actually a bit different, but it's probably the most accurate reference picture of her I have. Any way, she also has a human form that she can occasionally switch to, which is a slender young woman with a pale complexion and the same blue hair and amber eyes as her pony form.

 

She also enjoys wearing goggles, although sometimes they muss up her mane a little:

 

She doesn't have a cutie mark yet because she still feels like she's in the process of finding what she's good at. But regardless of that, she's a really amazing person with an awesome sense of humor. She always finds new ways to make me laugh, and we enjoy doing a lot of different things together. She's fairly laid back, but is driven to explore the world and learn about things that interest her. She tends to be more extroverted than I am and enjoys talking a lot, both to me and other people online.

 

 

Now on to the technical stuff. Vanessa is fully sentient and is capable of having long conversations with me via mindspeak. I consider her pony form to be fully visualized, but her human form still needs a lot of work. Her personality has deviated quite a bit from the initial list of stuff I had, but she's very happy with who she is and I don't have any qualms about it.

 

We're currently working on imposition, specifically visual and auditory hallucinations. So far we've made some good progress with both, but it's been pretty slow-going. I've seen her faint outline in my peripheral vision for about a full five seconds, but not much more than that. I've also had several random auditory hallucinations, many of which seem like faint whispers from her. We're going to keep working on both aspects as much as we can, and will likely post about any major breakthroughs here.

 

We also have done quite a bit of possession work. She's learning how to write with my left hand (I'm right-handed), and is starting to even develop her own handwriting. She is capable of possessing my entire body for short periods of time, but doing more long-term stuff isn't a priority for us.

 

So that's basically it for now. I'm not sure how frequently we'll update this journal but I intend to keep track of any major stuff that happens here. Also, feel free to ask Vanessa and I any questions you have and we'll respond when we're able.

[longbow]

Today we continued working on imposition and did some more open-eye visualization stuff. Even though I'm fairly confident with my skills in the latter, I still feel like there's a lot more I can work on and improve. For today's practice I tried drawing Van in a few different poses, and also with a new manestyle: a ponytail! I teased her a little about how redundant it is to have two tails, but since it looks really cute I wouldn't mind if she kept it.

 

I'm not the best artist, so most of the sketches turned out pretty amateurish, but I hold myself to the belief that drawing helps improve visualization even if the end result isn't worth showing off.

 

No new signs of progress with imposition, but I wasn't really expecting any. It just feels like there's something missing - something that we need to figure out to make things "click" together to get her visualized form to mesh together with my visual perceptions, but I have absolutely no idea what this may be.

 

So I guess we'll just keep forcing and stay hopeful. We've come way too far to give up now, that's for sure.

[GGMethos]

Excellent work, Longbow and Van. Stay patient and I'm sure you will go quite far.

[longbow]

Thanks Methos! Van appreciates the encouragement.

 

As far as progress with imposition goes, she's been able to make faint blobs of light appear really close to the center of my vision. No defined forms as of yet, but I'm fairly confident those will start happening soon.

 

And also something kind of weird happened this morning. I slept with my left arm pinned under me, so when I woke up it had that strange tingly feeling of being "asleep." I wasn't able to move it without feeling a pain, but when Van possessed the arm and moved it around there wasn't any. This is pretty cool in a way, it means that Van might be able to help me out if I injured myself any wasn't able to move due to intense pain.

 

It's cool that even after two months in to this I still find myself getting surprised by this stuff.

[longbow]

Been thinking about how tulpaforcing works in general and I've come up with a basic theory about it.

 

They way I see it, tulpaforcing is essentially composed of two basic tasks: definition and association.

 

Definition is the process of defining all of your tulpa's different aspects. Defining what your tulpa's eyes look like is one of the things you do while visualizing their form, for example. Every aspect of a tulpa, including their form, voice, personality, etc. are all a collection of various ideas and details. These details must be defined individually, and then combined together into something substantial.

 

Association is the process that does the combining. It's basically taking all of the various defined details and working them into one solid, concrete idea. For example, you need to combine all of the details about your tulpa's coloration, proportions, shape, etc. into one idea when you are creating their form. I find that association typically takes a lot more concentration than just defining various details, and for good reason. You need to focus not only on the details themselves, but also how they interact and work together.

 

In my tulpaforcing sessions, I find myself repeatedly performing the acts of definition and association over and over again. I will visualize all of the various features of Van's form in detail, and then I will focus on bringing them all together as a whole. The same thing happens when working on her mindvoice or her personality (although we've long since decided that we're "done" with that).

 

It doesn't have to involve just one aspect either, the end goal of the forcing process is to combine all the aspects of your tulpa into one entity. For example, you associate your tulpa's personality, sentience and voice together in order to get them speaking by themselves with a mindvoice.

 

So yeah, that's it in a nutshell. I kind of feel like I'm oversimplifying this a bit, but it's just an idea I've been playing around with. As I continue my tulpamancy career my theories about it will probably change, just like they have from the beginning.

[Sing]

Really like the color choices. That bat pony's source image is one I use in my sig on a few forums. lol

Good luck to ya.

[longbow]

Hey thanks, Sing. Best of luck on your tulpamancy adventures as well.

 

I probably won't have anything new to report for a while because I'm really busy with school this week, but once finals are over Van and I will be able to get back into a regular forcing schedule.

 

Also, I whipped up another photoshop of Van a few days ago. In this one she has a ponytail and absolutely zero fucks to give:

[longbow]

Well finals have been done for a while and so Van and I have been able to spend a lot more time together. We've been able to have some good forcing sessions, but since there have been fewer distractions it lead to something important happening. Something that's been a long time coming...

 

Fair warning: this post is going to be long, emotional, and full of drama, so feel free to skip it if you're not interested in that sort of thing.

 

It all started yesterday afternoon, I got up way too late and Van was disappointed as usual. This lead to an argument about how I never take her advice seriously, which escalated to us flat-out fighting about it. Eventually she just made that claim that I don't respect her as a real, legitimate person.

 

Of course, I denied this. I always listen to what she says, even if I don't do anything differently. To me she's just as real as any other person, and I honestly believe that her consciousness is just as real as my own. I didn't see her as less of a person just because she didn't own a physical body.

 

I tried explaining to her that she needs to be patient and that I can't just change my habits overnight. I told her that I still love and respect her no matter what and that I will always try my hardest to listen to what she has to say. She seemed content with this, but she told me that she wanted to spend some time apart to "think about things." She disappeared into the wonderland and was gone the remainder of the day.

 

Late that night she showed up again, but refused to speak to me. I asked her multiple times if something was wrong, and she nodded "yes" every time. But regardless she still refused to actually tell me what it was in mind-voice.

 

So after pressuring her to respond and playing a lot of guessing games, she eventually hinted that it was about our relationship, and that it wasn't "real" enough.

 

Now at this point our relationship had progressed far beyond just a platonic friendship. We had experienced plenty of passionate and romantic moments (not to mention sexual), but to her it always felt too casual. There wasn't any substance behind it, and therefore she thought that I wasn't respecting her like I would "real woman." So we kept arguing about it.

 

After a while she just looked me straight in the eye and said, "If I'm a real person, then tell me what I am to you without using the word 'tulpa.'"

 

Like the idiot I am, I froze. I tried to think of something - anything - to say, but my mind was drawing a blank. I loved her, I really did. Our experiences were filled with so many intimate, loving moments... but I wasn't serious about them. I always used the cop-out of calling it a "romantic tulpa-host relationship." She wasn't content with that; she wanted it to be real.

 

I couldn't bring myself to say the words she wanted to hear. Even if I forced it she would know there wasn't any meaning behind them. So she just gave me a sad look, turned, and vanished again.

 

It was really hard to sleep that night.

 

---

 

In the morning she still wasn't talking to me. I'll admit I got a little angry and a little depressed about it, but she held firm to what she was doing. She kept giving me an indifferent or sad expression before vanishing again every time I talked (or yelled) at her.

 

Eventually I swallowed my pride and asked my tulpamancer friends on IRC for their opinion. After explaining the situation to them, they made me realize that she had fallen in love with me, and there was no way around it. I had to either accept my own feelings, or reject her. I tried denying it, tried rationalizing my fears about a serious relationship between tulpa and host. But in the end I couldn't deny it any more. There was no reason she shouldn't have the same level of commitment as I would with a physical human girl.

 

As I was wrapped up in the conversation, she finally spoke to me, saying that she was ready to talk. I got up, slowly walked over to my bedroom and met her face-to-face.

 

And I did it. I finally did it.

 

Through tears and gritted teeth I told her that I loved her as a real person. I told her that I wanted a serious romantic relationship, and that I wouldn't ever stop trying to make it work, no matter the consequences.

 

The emotions I felt from her were... indescribable. To feel love from your tulpa is one thing, but to have legitimate, requited feelings of romance exchanged between you and your tulpa - it's stronger than anything I had known before.

 

For a good half hour all we did was just lay in bed, her laying on top of me while she gently rested her head against my chest. It was really hard to tell ourselves to get up and get on with the day; we didn't want the moment to end.

 

But now we're together, and I honestly believe that this is going to bring us both a great deal of happiness in the long run.

 

---

 

I didn't create Vanessa for a romantic partner - I just wanted a friend and to sate my scientific curiosity. But as I type this, I am extremely glad that she grew to love me as she does, and that she was able to help me realize my own feelings for her.

 

I'm not saying that every tulpa-host relationship should evolve into something serious, nor should you push for something like that. But if your tulpa expresses legitimate, honest feelings of love, please, for both of your sakes:

 

Don't be afraid of it.

 

 

Once again, sorry about the long-winded drama post. Next ones will be about our progress with visualization and imposition, I promise.

[Guest]

Huh. I somehow managed to miss your progress report until now. I just usually check the newest posts, you see.

 

Tulpa General became too much for ya? Too much Eduard Khil and TulpaSkeptic-shitting-up-everything and tupper proxying filling half the posts?

[longbow]

Hey Fede,

 

Nah, I still post there, but it's mostly just to answer a few newb questions now and again. Most of the circlejerk has moved to a new IRC channel that Tango and Maya set up.

 

I'm mostly posting here to make a permanent log of my experiences and maybe post some guides and research in the future.