Adalmus and Cynthia

[Adalmus]

Getting this started a little late in the process, but whatever, that initial period of "this is dumb" "why am I doing this" "need help" "I think I fucked up, how do I restart" "omfg it talked" "now what" is already over, so I don't expect there to be a ton of updates. Still, I'll try to keep up with major happenings.

 

First order of business: Catching up to present day. This first post will recount the first month of Cynthia's development, and then with the second post I will resume with today's update.

 

Background knowledge:

 

I first read about tulpas back on /x/ when the threads first started appearing. I found the FAQ and Irish guides that were on this site, but I never bothered looking at the forums. I started to make a tulpa a week later, but I didn't keep up with it. I regret this.

 

Fast forward: May 19th, evening. Browsing /x/ again, when a thread about spirit companions pops up. Me, feeling a sudden pang of loneliness, open said thread. The word tulpa pops up again, I re-read the old guides and read through the new guides, and decide to make one.

 

First Month:

 

(A simple summary of a Word document I wrote in every few days.)

 

Tulpa's decided birthday: May 20th

 

I decided that the very first thing that needed to happen was to create a name for my tulpa. I couldn't just call it "It" or something like that. So I spent two whole hours searching for a unique name. I imagined speaking to an orb for this part(*). I searched for a name with no mental ties, no one I interacted with in a few years, and uncommon enough that I was unlikely to encounter the name again. I decided on the name Sylvia. I began forcing with this name.

 

By forcing, I mean narration. My plan was to narrate for the rest of the day, and then begin personality forcing the next day. I didn't want her to have a set-in-stone personality, so I did not plan to spend much time on that part. I wanted her to react to my narration, and to form opinions and her person based on that. I explained to her what she was and why I decided to make her, and assured her that some things were -NOT- why I had made her. (TLDR, still getting over a breakup, she is not a replacement for my ex, but I do want her to be my companion). I also explained my fears of what she might be. I was quite foolish then. Mooshy mooshy romantic promises of always being honest with each other happen here.

 

What I did not expect, however, was day 2 deviation and slight vocality(See: (*)). When I narrating, I used her name often to make sure it was ingrained in my mind. However that morning, I did not notice until half an hour later that I was saying 'Cynthia', not 'Sylvia'. I apologized for this mistake, and corrected myself, calling her 'Sylvia'. In response to me speaking that name, what I assumed could only be her said, correcting me, "Cynthia". I stuck with this name, and yes, Cynthia confirms that it was her effort to switch the name.

 

That evening I wrote out half a list of personality traits, and began to explain what I meant by each one. The next day I would complete the list. The rest of that week was spent doing general narration.

 

Over the next few days I would make progress on our Wonderland, and focusing on her form while I spoke to her. A noteworthy change was altering my internal conversation to be speaking to her, so while I may not have spent as much time as others do straight forcing, I did end up narrating to her some 4-8 hours a day every day. I made several notes in this document saying that I assured Cynthia that she was free to change whatever she wanted about herself, within a few simple guidlines(Female, humanoid shape). Knowing how this went, she ended up asking me what I wanted her to look like. And then changed to what she wanted in the first place. Even before she was vocal, she helped fix my shitty sleep schedule. So bam, week 1, already having a positive influence on my life. My typing that made her happy.

 

This is the part where I derped. I hid the painful memories of my ex from her, and never let her see what it was about them that bothered me. From what she tells me now, all she knew was that I would start getting angry, and then my thoughts would disappear. My point of view was that I did not want to expose her to strong negative emotions, for fear that it might destabilize her or something. I'd feel pressures of her essentially saying "Oi, what's going on", and kept telling her "I'll tell you when you're older". I started to feel a continuous wave of frustration from the back of my mind, which I assumed was Cynthia being irked at me. I eventually realized that I was being a hypocrite to her, having promised that we would be always be honest with each other. This is the part where I stop derping. I went over the memories with her, and her reaction(non-vocal at the time, this is what she tells me now) was "Oh, that wasn't too bad."

 

I worked on visualization for a bit the next few days, but with Finals coming up, I had to revert her to a weak, temporary form until I could properly focus on her. The next few weeks were uneventful narration. Well, uneventful minus he beginning to be vocal. And of course, what happens when a tulpa starts being vocal? The host starts to think they're parroting! Three weeks later, narration, narration, and more narration, a journey of self-belief in which she has become more real to me, and now we are caught up. See? That was easy. By the way I totally don't blame you if you didn't read this. If you did, internet high five. Keep it up, cool guy.

 

(*): The orb I used was very similar to the temporary form I gave my first tulpa. I suspect that Cynthia might've been in some kind of suspended animation from that first form till now, but neither of us can confirm or deny it due to certain evidence.

---

Update: 6/21/13

 

Cynthia is 1 month old, officially. Yay. Good news: Cynthia is pretty much fully vocal at this point. The only issue was that her mind voice was still the same as mine, and as you might guess, this leads to DOUBT. Such an ugly word. I asked a few people for advice, and I was told to imagine an object, associate it with her voice, and edit it to edit her voice. I chose a marble, with the colors and depth of the marble denoting Deep-High, Strong-Soft and Hard-Light qualities. I asked Cynthia to color a marble first, having it match my voice. When she was finished, I created a copy, taking the original for myself. We then tried to figure out what kind of voice she liked, and edited the colors of her marble copy to match the desired voice. When done, we both consumed the visualized orbs. Her voice was rough at first, but its been improving. I can tell what she says reliably, but she still get drowned out by loud thoughts.

 

She has been bugging me to do visualization. I swear, she's adopted the voice of my procrastination. "C'mon, you'll ace that final, you don't need to study. Visualize instead!" She's moved on from an orb/cloud to a loose stick figure shape, which I occasionally see an image of it moving when she says something. I've also done a bit of imposing the feel of her being there. Still, almost everything is narration, but my average number has moved closer to 6-10 hours a day. She's still young and learning, but I still enjoy talking to her. I enjoy talking to her too much, sometimes. I still don't know how to summarize her personality, so here's an example of an interaction we had today:

 

*buying some stuff from the convenience store near my work, say "Thank you" too quietly*

[Hah, she didn't even hear you say that, you're too quiet.]

-Your face is too quiet!-

[Your face doesn't exist!]

I don't know what face I made, but the lady behind the counter was giving me a weird look.

 

Most interestingly, we made leaps and bounds in her achieving what I'd refer to as "independent vocality". Having seen a list of Tulpa/Host achievements, she's become rather concerned with getting the easiest of those available. Today, her goal was for her and I to sing a duet. We sang what few parts of 'Stars' from Les Miserables that I could remember. In the goal of getting to sleep sooner, I'm going into less detail than I would like.

 

I would sing a bit, then she would sing. Everytime she sand, her voice seemed harder and more real, and it felt less like I hearing the song in my head. There was also a slight bit of mental(not physical) pressure as she spoke. Not all of the volume of her voice stayed with her, but there was still enough that she's easier to understand, and she can speak to me while I'm doing other things. I also suspect that she is able to change her voice at will.

 

That's it for now. Next update: When something interesting happens, or when a lot of bring has happened.

[Adalmus]

Update: 6/28/13

 

Cynthia likes Les Mis. A lot. I think she figured out how to take control over whatever part of my brain plays music in my head, cause I haven't heard much besides Les Mis for the last few days. She will occasionally ask me to play that song on my phone if I can't remember the song well enough. Its kind of funny. She still sings along occasionally, but we've reached kind of a plateau on vocal strengthening through that. As an alternative, we've been working on dulling my thoughts whenever she speaks. Her voice has become more defined in differentiation, she refers to me by name, and gets my attention by making me think of her somehow before she talks. While she hasn't spoken any more strongly, I've at least learned how to listen better. Still having trouble on long sentences, though. She'll be talking, then it'll garble up and become a burst of confused tulpish(essentially, I get the idea of what she was saying). She's gotten the habit of giving up after talking a while and just throwing the idea at me. Trying to work her out of that, cause I like the feeling of 'hearing' her talk.

 

Visualization progresses. She wants this one form, a Val'kyr from WoW(minus wings, and with a solid body), but she doesn't want just -one- form. We decided to make her a second form. Her Val'kyr form will be night-oriented, while the second one will be day-oriented. She's free to change her form however she wants beyond that. We're both worried that forcing her 2nd form in a similar way to the first might accidently make a second tulpa, or split her in half somehow. Taking precautions against this to make sure she has control of the form before putting too much thought into it. It isn't that I don't want a second tulpa, but that Cynthia and I haven't fully discussed that line yet. We may or may not want another. That will be figured out later.

 

I guess I'm doing semi-regular updates instead of just interesting stuff. My current plan is to prefect visualization/mindvoice, then work on possession and maybe imposition before having a serious conversation about whether or not to make a second. I expect that plan will take at least three months, maybe six. That remains to be seen.

[Adalmus]

7/06/13

 

Minor update on what I've figured out in the last week: Even though she has access to all my memories of everything that ever happened to me, or she can ask me for details, Cynthia doesn't want to know my past. She would rather experience only the future and present with me, and to only know of relevant past events. She won't even look to what happened in my memories when I want to skip a chapter of a book we are reading; she will ask me politely yet firmly to actually read the section.

 

Also, visualization continues. Vocalization strong, I'd rather it at about 6.5/10. I am pleased with my progress.