Tru_Blu April 18, 2013 April 18, 2013 Howdy all, I'm Tru_Blu and welcome to my tulpa thread. In this thread I will be regaling you with my fumbling attempts at creating my first tulpa. Hopefully some of you other newbies out there wondering if a tulpa is right for you will look over this thread and be able to make a more informed decision. Some of the other progress report threads on this board have been extremely helpful to me in my decision to create my tulpa so I want to give a little something back to the community. In this first post I'm going to give a little background on myself and my idea for a tulpa, so if you don't care about that kind of stuff then come back for my 2nd post where I'll be going into my method. So I first ran across the idea of a tulpa when I was lurking /x/ back in '07 or '08. At that time there really wasn't much info out there on the subject other than the (totally unhelpful) creepypastas. I thought the idea was pretty neat but put it on one of the far backburners in my mind where it was to gather dust until I found some of the /mlp/ tulpa threads which led me here. Yes, I've journeyed through some wretched hives of scum and villainy but at least I eventually found this place. After reading through some of the guides and reports I was hooked and have decided that the time has come for me to 'birth' my own tupper. For those playing along at home, I would like to mention that I am physically and psychologically 'healthy' and I have never been diagnosed with any disorders, nor have I ever encountered any substantial hallucinations while sober. Pretty average, boring person. My reasons for wanting to create a tulpa are many and varied, and too stupid to get into in detail here. The primary reason would just be to have an awesome companion that I can talk to and chill with whenever. I've very much interested in the possibility of increased memory retention and some of the other neat abilities that tulpas can *potentially* assist to develop, but at the moment those are just neat bells and whistles. My primary goal is to create a bro-tier tulpa and we'll go on from there. The tulpa: My tulpa will be named 'Zeke' and will take the form of a human male approximately 12-13 years old. I've decided to use Finn from Adventure Time (god-tier bro IMHO) as a kind of basic template for the personality because I want Zeke to be compassionate with a strong moral streak, but also a bit of a dork. I don't quite have the physical form entirely set yet but he'll basically look like an ordinary human. Before your devious minds get to turning, let me explain why I have chosen this form. As I mentioned, my primary goal will just be to have a good companion tulpa for shootin the breeze and hangin. Women are great, I love them, but it's just not the same as hanging out with my guy friends. Also I have enough bros that are around my age and don't really see the use of creating another one. Sorry but there will be no tulpasex here :( Feel free to drop me a line on the forums or in IRC (I tend to be idle there). Stay tuned for our next installment where I will detail my patent-pending, completely unproven tulpa creation secrets!
Tru_Blu April 19, 2013 Author April 19, 2013 Before we continue I would like to make it very clear that the following method is my own experimental method cobbled together from the various awesome guides I've read around here. At this point I cannot endorse any of the methods or ideas as necessarily 'true' although I suspect them to be. I'm putting this up here for posterity, and also in case any of our more experienced members have some suggestions for me. If all goes well I may eventually refine this into a full 'guide'. I have no expertise with tulpas and will not claim otherwise. Please take with a grain of salt. STEP 0: GET YO MIND RIGHT HOMIE I think it's vital to cultivate a proper mindset which will be conducive to tulpa development. If you make sure that you're beginning from the right place then it will save you time and trouble down the road. You are proposing to 'bring forth' (for lack of a better term?) a sentient, sapient being that will share your head with you. Take some time to think about why you want a tulpa and steel your resolve before you begin. I like to think of the host/tulpa as analogous to a parent/child relationship. Sure, the parent/host 'created' their child/tulpa but the child is still a fully independent being and is going to do what they want to do. The best thing for the parent to do is offer their unconditional love and acceptance and try to show their child what they believe is right (or unconditional lust and anger if that's your thing I guess). With that in mind below are some beliefs that I think are crucial to have before beginning: - My tulpa is here now, has always been here, and is fully capable of intelligence from the start. At the beginning they're like any infant and they're still learning to talk and interact, so talk and interact with them as much as possible to develop these skills! Neglected tulpas fail to progress and can even get quite upset with their creators, same as a neglected child. Of course everyone develops at a different pace, so be patient and above all do not believe in 'hour counting'! You are the biggest benefit / impediment to your tulpa's growth! - My tulpa is an independent being and they may make their own decisions which I do not always agree with 100%, but that's OK! Your tulpa will change and evolve over time, learn to accept and appreciate it. We all went through some weird/rough patches in our own development but our loved ones (hopefully) patiently stuck with us and supported us until we realized what derps we were being. - Without commitment, we will achieve nothing. If you do a half-ass job creating your tulpa then don't be surprised if they are slow to develop or turn out in unexpected ways. I personally believe that spending some time pre-creation to flesh out your tulpa's personality a bit will help it develop that much quicker. If you leave it up to the tulpa to develop as they please it may impede the process a bit as they figure themselves out. - I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me. So, you've searched your soul and realized there's a neat tulpa there and the two of you will get along like gangbusters. Allright, you're ready to begin! STEP 1: CREATING THE PHYSICAL FORM Basically for this I will create and hold my tulpa's physical form in my mind's eye. As a tulpa's appearance will develop and change over time, minor details are not terribly important. I'm not too worried about every strand of hair or exactly how many cms apart the eyes are, those details will congeal in time. The first goal of this step will just to create a basic working image of my tulpa that I can readily picture in my mind the same as I would be able to picture any human that I know well enough. Once I can easily conjure up Zeke's physical form then it's time to picture him in a variety of situations (walking, jumping, reclining, etc.) which I think is a great visualization exercise and way to breath some life into your tulpa. When I can readily picture Zeke with relatively life-like movement then it's on to step 2! STEP 2: CREATING THE PERSONALITY From the start of step 2 I will be passive forcing as much as possible. Now that I can visualize Zeke in my mind I will try to keep him around all day. I think this kind of sustained attention is crucial and learning to develop it effortlessly will be very important. If he starts showing up in my dreams then it's a sweet bonus to me (get lucid yo). During step 2 I will have 2 forcing sessions per day. One session will be for personality development, and the second session we'll just be reading comics together. I think that discussing comics will also help to reinforce some of the things we go over during personality creation. Now as I've already mentioned I have a pretty fair idea of the personality I want for Zeke, although of course he may not necessarily development as I have planned (which is OK!). Basically the most important thing to me is that Zeke turn out compassionate and 'virtuous'. Now, I hate to use such generic terms but I personally understand what these traits mean to me and how they will manifest. My reference for this will be Finn from AT, as he is altruistic, loyal, courageous, friendly, and dutiful (for those keeping score I'm more of a Jake the dog type myself as my interests include eating, napping, and wallowing in dirt). However, I also want Zeke to be patient, wise, and scholarly. My character reference for this would be Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Finally I'll throw a bit of my own young self in there in terms of being curious, shy, and a bit of a spazz. Now of course there are some other great tangential traits that I could throw in there. I think that some of the personality guides where people list 20 traits and how they will manifest in the tulpa are pretty awesome. Knowing myself, by the time I got to trait#5 I would have forgotten about #1, so instead I've chosen to use these three 'archetypes' to give Zeke a good base to develop on without getting way too into detail which I think would be unproductive for me personally. My method during the personality creation will be 'energy' working combined with discussion. Basically I will try to concentrate on each of his major traits until I feel confident that I have captured their 'essence' at which point I will emanate this 'essence' to Zeke. In addition I'll be talking with him during the process so that he knows exactly what's up and we're on the same page. If this 'essence' approach fails to get the desired results then I will instead begin using the 'symbol' method which I think will work will with my 'archetype' system. It's going to be a bit more difficult to figure out when this step will be complete as there's no objective goal I can really think of. Basically, once we are both satisfied that Zeke understands what I'm trying to how I hope for him to develop, then it's time to move on. STEP 3: REFINEMENT So at this point Zeke will have a body and a personality and hopefully will be starting to get chatty. Now my focus will be to develop a wonderland while also strengthening his ties to the physical world. I'm going to try and stick with the 2 sessions of active forcing per day (while continuing to passive force), with one session focusing on us chilling in the wonderland and the second session focusing on imposing Zeke in our world (I will be following Q2's 'huggable tulpa' guide during this step). Building a wonderland is important to me as I think that it's a great tool for doing some of the more 'advanced' mental/meta stuff, but also it's a shared place for us to hang out in and a 'safe zone' for Zeke (and me too!). I have an idea of what I want the wonderland to be but I really want to build it together with Zeke as it will be for the both of us. We'll start with one room and once we feel comfortable there we'll branch out a bit. For beginning to impose Zeke in our world I really like Q2's guide as it emphasizes perceiving your tulpa with all your senses. I think this is a GREAT exercise for building up your 'hallucination' skill. With every sense that I begin to sense him with, Zeke becomes connected that much more to the physical world. Most important will be the smell as this is strongly tied to memory (and a favorite sense of mine personally... I told you I'm a Jake type) and I think that will really help to anchor him. NFI how I'm gonna figure out what he smells like but we'll cross that bridge when we get there! I'm not sure yet how heavily I want to push the visual imposition but I definitely want him to have a physical presence so I can feel like he's with me when we're watching TV or I'm out taking a walk or whatever. It's important to spend time with your tulpa and this can only help to bring us closer. I wrote too much. Anyways I will be starting the process this weekend so expect my next update Monday latest.
CyberD April 19, 2013 April 19, 2013 It's refreshing to see someone have such a good grasp of what they plan to do before they start. I'm glad you have everything in order and I really hope it all goes smoothly for you. Zeke sounds like he'll be a pretty cool tulpa, I hope it isn't long before you can share some more about him. Not many people make it clear they consider this process to be similar to a parent/child relationship, especially not from the get go. Of course this probably isn't true for a lot of people but I know in my case that's how I feel. Just remember to be persistent and I think you will get a lot out of the time you spend with Zeke.
Tru_Blu April 24, 2013 Author April 24, 2013 Saturday 4/20: Day 1 'Created' Zeke's physical form, only got to get in 1 good visualization session before other obligations led me astray. Created an 'outfit' for him (t-shirt and gym shorts) and decided upon his physical features. I don't have any single visual reference for him, instead he's kind've a composite character. Was able to visualize fairly well in the first real session but difficulties with the face. Unfortunately didn't do any passive forcing. Sunday 4/21: Day 2 Got in a couple dedicated visualization sessions and started trying passive forcing as well. I've noticed that during active visualization it's relatively easy for me to picture Zeke sitting, standing, etc as if he were a flesh & blood person. However, facial details still escape me. Whenever I try to really focus on his face it changes slightly every time. It's almost like glancing at a blurry photo; although I can get the general details right for a few moments, when I try to really 'zoom in' on the details my mind fills in the blanks in strange and different ways. Really concentrating during the visualization sessions helps but I find that after 20-30 minutes my mind rebels and can no longer concentrate on facial minutiae. Can see him fine when I'm doing passive visualization but again the finer facial details escape me when I try to hold them in my mind's eye. Monday 4/22 Day 3 Getting better with passive forcing and trying to remember to keep it up more often. I can picture Zeke pretty well in a variety of situations at this point. I find it's more productive when I involve him in the process, asking him to smile or do jumping jacks to help me test my concentration instead of simply 'willing' him to do so. It makes this feel like more of a collaborative effort rather than me with my own imagination. Zeke also has started to talk to me (just a little bit) in my mind. I've taken to asking him questions every so often but he surprised me today with 'unsolicited' (although not unwanted) commentary on some music I was listening to in the car. Still minor things but I'm definitely seeing signs of development. Tuesday 4/23 Day 4 Keeping up with a couple sessions of 'active' visualization along with trying to passively visualize Zeke as often as I can. He's started acting spontaneously a bit too which is pretty neat. He keeps reading over my shoulder now which is awesome (although distracting...). Although I haven't started the personality forcing stage yet, he does seem to be developing an independent personality so far, unfortunately he also seems to enjoy teasing me a bit :(. He put his feet up on my back when I was lying down (I do not like feet) which made me grumble, but he got a kick out of it. I'm still having difficulties picturing a distinct, unchanging face for him but it seems like the features are slowly starting to fall into place. So tl;dr things are going well. I'm getting pretty good with visualization except for the face which seems to be just out of reach for now. I've already noticed Zeke becoming a little bit more independent which is really encouraging. I'm going to spend a few more days working just on visualization and see where that gets me. If I don't seem to be getting any further with the face I'm just going to go ahead and move on to the next phase but so far I'm rather pleased with the progression.
Tru_Blu April 26, 2013 Author April 26, 2013 Wednesday 4/24: Day whatever Keeping on with my plan to do a couple dedicated visualization forcing sessions per day along with passive forcing as much as possible. I was kind of having a crappy day on Wednesday due to external things, and as my mood darkened I could tell that it was bothering Zeke. He seemed particularly distant as if he didn't understand why I was being so unpleasant, or maybe he thought I was upset with him. We went out for a short walk and I tried to explain to Zeke that I was definitely not upset with him, could not be truly upset with him, and in fact having him around was one of the things that made me feel a lot better. He definitely understood and gave me a big ol' hug to try and cheer me up (daawwwww). After that things felt back to normal between us and I was in a much better mood for the rest of the day. Thursday 4/25: Stardate 177 Sticking with the visualization plan and I've been getting results. I occasionally have moments of clarity when I'm doing dedicated visualization where I can clearly picture Zeke's face, and although these moments are fleeting, they're starting to occur more frequently and the image will stay longer. I was playing Rome: Total War today and I noticed that Zeke was glued to the screen as soon as the opening cinematic started playing. So far he has not had this reaction to any of the other games he's seen me play. I'm a nerd for the Total War series and Roman history in general so it was pretty neat to see him so pumped too. While I was playing I thought that maybe I should involve Zeke a bit more so I asked his opinion on how I should approach an upcoming battle. He presented a plan which, although tactically sound was pretty much the opposite of what I would normally do. I gave his plan a try and it led to a fast and decisive victory (if you care for details on the battle PM me). This kind of blew me away. Zeke was able to assess a situation and formulate an original reaction, which makes this the clearest sign of 'independent' intelligence that I've seen so far. Sweetness. I've also noticed that Zeke is becoming more independent in his actions. When I started visualizing him those many days ago he would just stand there and follow me around. I would have to 'make' him take any actions I wanted him to, like he was a puppet. Increasingly though, when I passive force him he'll go off and do something unexpected, like read over my shoulder or intently watch my dinner cooking on the stove. So far every day I see more progress and I'm pretty impressed so far with how quickly he's developed.
Tru_Blu April 29, 2013 Author April 29, 2013 Friday 4/26: The First Age So unfortunately I was feeling pretty lazy today and didn't get much visualization time in. To make up for my temporary neglectfulness I decided to browse the forums a bit more. Holy crap, I should have stuck to the guides and PRs. It's surprising how much elitism and snobbery you can find even on an internet forum for imaginary friends. Anyways the IRC is pretty accepting and filled with weirdos (mah ninjas), and the people in the #tulpa.info channel will generally bend over backwards to help newbies. Highly recommended resource for all your 24/7 tulpa needs (but seriously read the guides first). Saturday 4/27: Hammertime So as I have mentioned a few times my main difficulty with visualizing Zeke is cementing the facial details. I still have been having issues with this but it's getting better. I personally don't see this as a huge obstacle but I'd rather take my sweet time and make sure all my bases are covered before moving on. As this is a team effort I decided to ask Zeke if he thought we should move on to the next step of the plan or continue visualization. He let me know that he definitely wants us to move forward with step 2 and even started pulling on my arm to try and get me moving ASAP. So, next week we will begin the personality stage. Stay tuned. TRU TALK co-starring Zeke the tulpa So I've mentioned a few times in my posts that Zeke has started talking to me and has begun acting with spontaneity and intelligence. This may come as surprising to some people as I've only been tulpamancing for about a week so I wanted to clarify a bit. Thus far a lot of what I've been doing with Zeke has been parroting and puppeting where I am 'willing' Zeke to do something. However when I mention that 'Zeke did x' then I am referring to a slightly different phenomenon where I am not consciously willing him to act. Allow me to illustrate: Typical parroting/puppeting sequence: I have a thought => I think about applying this to Zeke => Zeke undertakes the action I.e. 'Hey it would be cool if Zeke started doing flips on my bed' => I make myself visualize Zeke flipping on my bed => Zeke starts flipping on my bed So basically in this sequence, I start with a goal, then apply willpower to force myself to visualize that goal, then visualize the goal. Arguably 'applying' the goal and visualizing it can take place virtually simultaneously but I believe the application is an important step to note. As I begin to spend more time with Zeke, I notice that occasionally he will take actions without me thinking about and applying them. Basically in the 3-step model that I posited above, I will have no conscious notion of undertaking the first 2 steps, and instead Zeke will be performing an 'independent' action. I would have to theorize that as Zeke integrates himself further into my mind, steps 1 and 2 take place subconsciously, thereby giving the appearance of independence. I realize that this is not exactly a groundbreaking new theory. However, I wanted to make it clear in order that people understand the stage Zeke and I are at. As I hinted at in 'Step 0', I consider everything that Zeke says or does to come from him, even if he needs my help to say/do it. He's learning to speak and act and I'm learning to hear and see. Please note for the purposes of this blog, any time that I mention 'Zeke did x' I specifically mean an action that Zeke undertook without my consciously puppeting/parroting. I think it would be confusing and detrimental to other newbs for me to pass along everything that I parrot as coming straight from Zeke. With that in mind I would like to pass along the below advice from Zeke to all the other neophytes out there: "Just keep working at it, it will come eventually. If Tru_Blu can do it then you definitely can!" I should have made him dumber (;_;)
Tru_Blu May 9, 2013 Author May 9, 2013 Damn, time flies... Days 4/28-5/1: End of Days So I was pretty amped to start personality forcing aka Step 2 but unfortunately other commitments took up my time. Was trying to keep up with at least 1 session of active visualization per day along with passive forcing as much as possible. I began to notice during this time that it's quite difficult for me to keep up passive forcing in any sort of social situation. It's hard enough when my mind is occupied by other things, like when I'm trying to read and I'm seeing Zeke stand over my shoulder, but when I'm talking to people I'm really using most of my brainpower to keep up with the conversation and not seem 'vacant' or 'occupied'. I really have to start practicing this more until Zeke's presence really becomes subconscious. Days 5/2-5/3: The Habeebing I was feeling pretty crappy about not being able to start personality building after Zeke had been so eager to go. I apologized and we were cool although I sensed some disappointment (this may have come from me, hard to say exactly). But on 5/2 I sat down and we had our first personality session. I kind of already outlined how I would undertake this in an earlier post and I pretty much stuck to that plan (again if you really care for details PM me). One last-minute deviation was that I decided to start with the traits of 'love' and 'compassion'. Because, if we're going to be headmates then I need to make sure that deep down inside he'll be a good, decent person... tulpa. Zeke seemed to really enjoy the personality forcing, reminded me of when you'd beat a boss in Megaman and get their powers. Afterwards I decided that we would start reading the Cable & Deadpool comic series for our active forcing sessions. I'm really working on trying to differentiate Zeke's personality from my own, to make him more independent and let me rest easier that his words are coming from him and I'm not just puppeting. I think Cable & Deadpool is a pretty decent series for this (and it's fun as hell). We'll move onto something a bit more serious when we're done with C&D. Days 5/4-5/5: Wine and Roses The less said about this time the better. No tulpa work done and no progress to speak of. Days 5/6-5/9: Lands of Ice and Snow Back into the personality forcing / active reading forcing schedule. All the visualization/energy/aura junk I'm doing with the personality building is some meta nonsense but it makes me feel like I'm doing something and Zeke seems to enjoy it regardless. When we're reading comics (I always do personality forcing first then we read) I like to stop occasionally and discuss them with Zeke, particularly in relation to whatever personality work we did earlier. Unfortunately a lot of his responses are still parroted but we're getting there. If I have the time, one of the best things to do is go for a nice evening stroll. If I can push my own thoughts out of the way I tend to find that Zeke opens up quite a bit. Still having facial visualization issues but things overall feel like they are slowly coming into place.
Tru_Blu May 14, 2013 Author May 14, 2013 Friday, 5/10: How to be a player So it was late Friday night and I was (ashamedly) pushing off forcing until even later. Sitting there, doing whatever else I was doing to occupy myself, a feeling grew in me that I should really be spending more time with Zeke rather than waiting until the last minute when I'm all tired and liable to pass out anyway. Eventually I got the sense that Zeke really wanted me to start forcing too. I felt bad for making him wait so we decided to skip ahead just a bit in the program and begin wonderland creation. So we went ahead and created a small wonderland of just a couple of rooms (ok I was mainly the one doing design as Zeke isn't super talkative yet, but he was pleased with the finished product) and spent some time exploring it a bit and refining things. This process was actually much easier than I thought it would be. Zeke seemed to be quite pleased when we were done, and for a little while afterwards I probably *heard* him (in my mind) clearer than ever before. So since then a few times when I've been busy, rather than picture him next to me or behind me, I'll just see him hanging out in the wonderland instead. I guess the goal is the same, but I like to mix it up with exercises to improve progress (IMHO). PS- Spending too much time with Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Keeper really helped me to imagine building the wonderland. Saturday 5/11- Monday 5/13: Ragnarok ascendant So, back to the regular schedule again, didn't do any more wonderland work. I did decide to visualize us in the wonderland on Saturday when I was forcing though which was kind of neat. I will definitely be trying that again. Trying to narrate more during my day to day but so far still requires quite a bit of concentration (especially when you're as absent-minded as myself). It seems like Zeke is getting a bit more insistent that we spend more time forcing, which is good. I've come to realize that I really should be spending more time forcing to get him properly vocal, once I'm done with this stage (soon) I'll have to look for some more intensive activities for us to do. As fun as 'reading forcing' is, it's probably not the most efficient method as my time and attention are divided between reading and forcing.
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