Trouble perceiving/understanding and forcing personality traits.

[Griz]

Hi - I think it best to give a brief introduction to myself and what I'm doing. I've lurked on these forums and browsed the web about the concept of tulpae for about 6 months now (I hope I don't receive a cold shoulder like most new members receive in online forums), as the subject *deeply* interests me. Only very recently have I decided to see if I can prove the skeptic inside of me wrong and go ahead and start. I'd say I'm skeptical yet open and fascinated by the whole idea. My tulpa is based off the Halo character Cortana, both physically and mentally. I fully understand to give 'her' room to deviate and become her own entity, but she will be heavily influenced by both her look and her personality. I also think that it will help me solidify and speed up the process somewhat, since I know the character very well already. I'm not at all expecting the Cortana, just something roughly along the same lines.

 

Today I decided to start trying, starting with personality. I wrote down a list of traits that I would want her to have, some of those are those the actual character has, some of those are there out of personal taste, such as being encouraging and motivating, since I have trouble with motivation. When I sat down, closed my eyes and let my mind come to rest, I started imagining her in front of me, with me imbuing a ball of energy with said trait and firing it into her chest. I did this for around 5 minutes or so before I realised, I don't fully comprehend or understand the traits I'm trying to imbue her with, for example I grasp the concept of wit and I know what it is when I see or hear it, but I can't seem to 'fire' it into her in any meaningful way. Or at least all I seem to be doing is imagining the word and saying the word, filling the ball of energy with the word and releasing it. But its just the word. It doesn't feel like I'm doing it right.

 

I guess my question is, is that how you do it? It doesn't feel right, and it certainly doesn't feel as if I'm achieving the desired effect of filling her personality with the desired trait. This was felt across the board, even with obvious things like humour and sarcasm. It may be useful to know for any reason that I have Asperger's Syndrome and fall into the INTJ personality type. I find visualising images in my imagination very simple and easy, which is why I chose symbolism over narration, which I will probably end up doing as well so I give more energy to her.

 

Sorry for the long winded post, I'm new to this and I'm trying to be as thorough as I can.

 

-Grizzly

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To add onto this, something slightly disturbing has occurred. I've continued with imbuing a ball of energy with the word, and releasing it but its brought up an odd visualisation and mental sensation that I used to have nightmares about - except it isn't scary, its just concerning. I've never, ever been able to accurately describe what those nightmares I used have as a kid where and I still can't to this day, but the only way of describing it is the concept of an imperceptibly colossus cylindrical giant mass, that is moving/rolling. Thats the best way to describe it and its more a concept than something you can describe with words... I used to have nightmares that it would chase me or that it was just moving, but I'm sensing something highly similar to that sensation - devoid of the fear it usually contains - that originated from the ball of energy I had between my hands, and it was bigger than I could conceive of. I tried visualising myself, and then myself and 'Cortana' shutting it down forcibly but it didn't work, and whenever I have intrusive thoughts or thoughts I don't want I visualise myself shutting it down or chasing it out and it always works, but not in this case. It happened less than 5 minutes/ 2 traits through and tried to persevere but I stopped because it was making me feel weird - not scared though, like the image usually makes me when I dream it. I bet I'm going to have nightmares tonight. I don't know what to make of this, can someone give any sort of advice?

[Zero]

Uh... About the personality traits, that symbolism method is just a form of association. By visualizing a "ball of energy" and "loading" it with the personality trait you want and "firing" it into your tulpa, you are basically telling yourself "my tulpa has x trait now". In my own personal opinion, this isn't exactly a method that would work for a skeptic, though you say that you can visualize quite easily so I'm not one to tell you to do otherwise. However, you can't simply skip out on narration. You WILL need to talk to her if you want her to talk back - sure, focusing on her is already a form of forcing, but forcing entirely without narration (which is what I understood you are doing from your post, forgive me if I'm mistaken) won't be half as effective as forcing with it. Besides, you will need to talk to her eventually, so my first point of advice would be to both narrate and visualize, not choose one over the other.

 

Second, you don't have to put so much heavy emphasis on personality traits. They are useful for the tulpamancer, like a guideline, an expectation, but as you said in your post; "I fully understand to give 'her' room to deviate and become her own entity". I think your expectations of her may still be a little bit too high regarding her personality, mostly because of this:

she will be heavily influenced by both her look and her personality. I also think that it will help me solidify and speed up the process somewhat, since I know the character very well already. I'm not at all expecting the Cortana, just something roughly along the same lines.

 

It can help you to expect this behavior of her at first, but you should also expect her to change, and also be prepared for different behavior than what you may be expecting. Your personality forced traits may work, and Cortana will behave like you expect her to once she becomes vocal, but she can also end up with a completely different personality. What's important here is your expectations of who she'll be, not what you fire into her with a symbolical ball of personality energy. I've found expectations to be the most powerful form of personality forcing, and you don't even have to force those consciously - which leaves a lot more time for you to work on other things, such as form, narration, possession, imposition, etc.

 

Really, all you have to do is talk to her while working on other skills. I'd advise against attempting possession at this time, but given your visualization skills, you can already start imposing her, also working out the details of her form and creating a wonderland, all while narrating. - keep in mind, narration is crucial in making a tulpa. Talk, talk some more, and if you run out of things to talk about, talk about how little things there are to talk about. Judging by the length of your post, I'm sure you'll be perfectly fine blabbering to your tulpa for hours on end (something which most of them will love) so go ahead and do it. If you think just talking to her with no replies feels impersonal, try parroting/puppeting a conversation with her. Parroting is just another form of personality forcing, so if your method of symbolical visualized PF-loading doesn't work, don't be afraid to look for other methods and try them out. There is no one true, effective method, just your own rendition of another tulpamancer's guide.

 

Good luck.

[waffles]

About the personality, it's like Zero said: the idea is to associate your tulpa with the trait or vice versa. The symbolism you describe isn't the only way to do it, and if you don't feel that it works for you then

- use another method, e.g., talking through a particular trait and how it affects/shapes your tulpa, or

- try to come up with a visualisation that is more meaningful to you.

I suppose it is also worth mentioning that personality is optional.

 

About your cylinder, lie down and tell me your thoughts. Were you hit by a steamroller at an early age?

Seriously though, I suppose you could say that making a tulpa is a process of self-discovery and therefore you may uncover parts of your own mind and so on (or that you should discover for yourself what exactly is going on here). Either way, if you want to deal with it then you can, and if you don't then I guess you can try to ignore it and it will go away. If you expect it to happen, it is much more likely to.

[Griz]

Thanks you guys for those replies. Narration, or at least a sort of voice over both about what I was visualising and what I was doing to her happened automatically when I was doing the symbology bit. Zero, you say expectations are everything, but that my expectations of the end result are too high? I'm expecting a similar outcome in regards to the original character but I wouldn't want anything like a carbon copy at all anyway. Its just an influence; I wan't something that is by and large unique. Waffles thanks for that, thats help me sort of work out that I'm doing it right. Yeah I've read many times that personality is optional, but it can't hurt, especially for doing it the first time. Its more like a spherical dark, rough mass more than a cylinder but no I wasn't hit by a steam roller haha - I have no idea why I used to have nightmares about it as a kid, but it scared the shit out of me. It hasn't happened since and I've sat down and tulpaforced a couple times since I put this up. It wasn't scary though, it was just the exact same image without the fear that accompanies it but it did cause some concern. I'm also not bothering with a wonderland, since its easier for me to imagine a blank backdrop or just a void inside my mind. I can concentrate better that way, if I don't have to worry about forcing another set of images. I might make a wonderland later, but at this point it would just make it more difficult.