Riy's Progress Report

[Guest Riy]

What a lovely name! And a beautiful way to come about it. I haven't read much about plant-type tulpa before (sorry, that makes Zala sound like a pokemon)...and good luck with the passive forcing! I try to do it now and then, but it's challenging.

 

There's enough Pokemon these days we don't need any more! Why Cosh? WHY?

 

Kidding of course.

 

I'm still hitting a snag when it comes to passive-forcing though. I know it's because I've yet to project it into the real world but the best I can do right now is to experience something, try to enter the thought-space quickly, tell it to Zala, and then 'jump back' into the real world.

 

This gets tiring after a while. I need to come up with a better system.

[Coshledak]

 

There's enough Pokemon these days we don't need any more! Why Cosh? WHY?

 

Kidding of course.

 

I'm still hitting a snag when it comes to passive-forcing though. I know it's because I've yet to project it into the real world but the best I can do right now is to experience something, try to enter the thought-space quickly, tell it to Zala, and then 'jump back' into the real world.

 

This gets tiring after a while. I need to come up with a better system.

 

I KNOW. I WENT THERE. OH THE SHAME, THE SHAME.

 

I passively force in my car, if that helps at all? Passive-forcing, at least for me, is easier if I can talk out loud, because Adi isn't that well formed yet. But I can't talk aloud in the house or in public without people giving me the side-eye. So when I took a trip to Wal*Mart the other day, I talked to him aloud. He was in the car with me, in my peripheral vision, and since he's mute he doesn't talk back. But I could feel him there.

 

It's not really tiring for me, or at least it wasn't in the car, but it's about as distracting as a regular conversation. So you need to be careful.

[Guest Riy]

 

I KNOW. I WENT THERE. OH THE SHAME, THE SHAME.

 

I passively force in my car, if that helps at all? Passive-forcing, at least for me, is easier if I can talk out loud, because Adi isn't that well formed yet. But I can't talk aloud in the house or in public without people giving me the side-eye. So when I took a trip to Wal*Mart the other day, I talked to him aloud. He was in the car with me, in my peripheral vision, and since he's mute he doesn't talk back. But I could feel him there.

 

It's not really tiring for me, or at least it wasn't in the car, but it's about as distracting as a regular conversation. So you need to be careful.

 

 

I've found a workaround.

It's more of a bandaid, but until I get more deviation and evolution this will work for now.

Imagine the void of my thought place, now visualize rips in it, tearing of the void. What they reveal is what I'm seeing or experiencing. So Zala can be a silent passenger with me rather than it being completely cut off except for my active sessions.

 

Zala can look out into the world. I can passively narrate. Zala grows and keeps beating me at tic tac toe. Everyone's happy.

 

Post note how can my subconscious beat me at tic tac toe anyways

[Guest Riy]

Yesterday I moved to a new dormitory. It took me all evening and most of the night. At first I was a bit miffed at not being able to active force but then realized this was a perfect opportunity to show Zala everything I own and how I got to acquire them.

 

I do wish Zala actually existed since I had no help with the move and after the 26th time going up three flights of stairs I could really use some tree strength. Speaking of which...Zala has grown enormous after this passive forcing. Since I was moving alone at night it was one continuous session. My thought space has no boundaries but relative to me Zala is about the size of a parking garage.

 

There hasn't been any more words and I can't find the same area where "Zala" was written. When I ask, I don't get a response, but it responds if I say "Zala" by picking me up or using its vines to make a waving motion.

 

I've started to play games. I'd make tic tac toe boards in the air and I've started teaching it chess. I'm reminded a lot about when my father taught me chess, using only half the pieces and taking a half hour to move. Zala is not patient, but I've noticed it also isn't compulsive. It makes a decision quickly but not in a reckless or childish way.

 

In a sure way. Even if later on I say it was the wrong choice. I guess the word is conviction. Zala has conviction.

 

There's still no speaking on its part, it doesn't draw words in the bark or in the air (I've told it multiple times and demonstrated how) but Zala is still a mute. It enjoys my active sessions over my passive ones because it likes to have me leaning against it while I narrate. I can tell it feels a bit like it's caged because it basically has to look at the world through the windows I've made for it.

 

I'll come up with a better solution soon.

[Guest Riy]

2013-11-07

 

I passive forced all day at work today. I work with explosives a lot of the time and heavy equipment.

Trying to demonstrate that It's hard to hold an initiator, pliers, and a Phillips screwdriver all at once is difficult. Zala has a lot of branches and vines, it cocked its trunk when I explained while I worked.

 

I've realized today that Zala is going to outgrow my thought-place. Yes, it's infinite but I'm going to have to force deviation from it or eventually I'm going to be talking to a wall of bark.

So, I started talking to it about my hopes for it. How I want to bring it out of the void and next to me. I was honest with Zala, and I explained that it was missing out. I've brought the rips in the void closer to it with the hopes that maybe it will draw some sort of response or action from it.

 

This is the first time I've straight up told it that I want something from it. As I left I saw Zala move closer to the rip and "look out".

 

I'll continue with an active forcing session tomorrow.

[Coshledak]

I'm impressed that you would passively force there--it sounds like such a dangerous work place?

 

I'm hoping to do some passive forcing with Adi tomorrow during the drive to school. But that's incredible that Zala's growing so much, and it seems so interested in the physical world. You might have to keep communicating your thoughts/wants for her to get her to open up to the idea, but I think that it's making great progress. That curiosity I saw from your first post until now should help you both!

[Guest Riy]

@Cosh

I almost never talk out loud. But I do now when I passive force. I work in North Dakota where it's very cold and I wear a face guard on my jaw to keep the cold off my neck and mouth. So I can get away with mumbling and talking since I don't look like a crazy person walking around or working on equipment.

 

From the moment I started with this, I wanted to take a wait and see approach. But, now that circumstances are this way I realized I'm going to have to force a change here. Something has to happen.

I'll admit I'm a bit envious of people that can chat with something resembling a human, or something that can be projected a bit easier. Zala wants out I can tell. And I think it realizes the sort of metaphysical limitations it has.

 

I'm going to active force tomorrow, see if I can't get some sort of communication going.

[Gabriel]

Sort of a symbolic idea, here; but what about working on a Pinnochio-like being for Zala?

You could ask permission to use it's woods and craft a humanoid out of it. I'm sure Zala would profit a lot from it.

-R.

[Guest Riy]

2013-11-08

There has been a....development.

Grab yourself some coffee, wall of text incoming.

 

 

I normally work a night shift at my job which means I usually sleep until about midday. But, today I woke up early in order to get an active session in. For the past two days I have been passively-forcing (this was easier since I was moving and working an extended shift last night), but today I wanted to get a really effective session in.

This was the first time active-forced in my new living space so initially I had a really tough time shoving out intrusive thoughts. The building uses new state of the art electrical lighting, heating, and cooling. So things are always coming on or shutting off. It is incredibly hard for me to maintain focus.

But I worked at it until I could keep my concentration and I entered my thought-space as I always had. (Recently I had been imagining that to Zala it much look like I was phasing in and out like on Star Trek or something.)

 

For a few beats I thought that Zala hadn't noticed I was near it. Normally it's been like a puppy or a child when I visit 'in person'. Tugging at me or doing an X motion with it's vines when it wants to play tic tac toe since I always let it be the X.

The rips in the void I had made for it were in the same spot, but several branches and vines had wrapped around the borders of the windows.

Zala still hadn't moved. Now, it's important to understand that by this time it's trunk was about as wide and deep as a small building and it's branches were several stories tall. Not that that means anything in an infinite void, but I must press that Zala's size was nothing to thumb your nose at.

 

So when I say I "walked around it's side" we're talking the equivalent of walking halfway down a city block. It's root system was incredibly wide and it twisted, bending into the 'floor' of the void. Needless to say that climbing over and through the maze took a while and while I walked Zala still made no motions.

 

About halfway around I knew something was very wrong. Zala still had not moved and the whole scene seemed darker somehow, lifeless, eerie. Zala was always very flexible and bendable but there was no way the branches on the other side of it could reach the floor unless the trunk was broken, like a house being consumed by a sinkhole. An uneven portion of it was drooping at a sickening angle and down it's center there was a fissure, the trunk was cracked open like a clam shell.

 

Half of Zala was 'falling' into the void.

Oh fuck. Was all I could really think at that moment. I'll admit that I panicked slightly which broke my concentration. It took me several minutes to calm myself and jump back in.

I ran my fingers over the bark as I made my way back around it. I stayed as close to the base of the trunk as I could.

 

As I walked again, I inspected Zala. That's when I noticed the designs between the cracks and wrinkles in Zala's skin. When I first saw the word "Zala" it was obvious, large, sprawled across the trunk in the handwriting of a child just learning to write.

This was the first time I really looked. Deep in the cracks of bark there were scribblings, markings, designs. There were characters I had described from movies, the model of my first car, titles of books, the name of my first girlfriend. Everything I had talked about and narrated to Zala was chiseled in the spaces between chunks of bark.

Everything

 

And that's when I heard the soft 'clunk'.

I ran over to where I had been before, where I had first noticed that half of Zala was 'gone'.

Inside the open trunk, at it's center somewhat far away from me there was the table, chess board, and single chair for myself I had set up for us several days ago.

On the side closest to me there was the burnt plant I had originally found when I first started meditating. It picked up a pawn with it's solitary leaf and moved it forward a space.

Clunk

I couldn't help but feel I was walking through Zala's carcass as I approached. Across from the burnt plant there sat a figure. Feminine, dark complexion. As I got closer I realized her skin was the same color as Zala's bark. She had long dull grey hair that resembled Zala's vines and they broke upon her shoulders. She had muted red eyes, almost the color of copper. Her elbows rested on the table, her fingers intertwined in front of her mouth in much the same way I would sit when I played.

She wore no clothes, not that she needed it since she seemed to be made out of tree bark. She seemed young, if not petite. As I got closer she extended a hand and moved a pawn of her own across the board, when she gripped the piece I saw small tendrils of vines sprout from her fingertip to wrap around as well. She lightly dropped the pawn on the new square.

Clunk

 

I brought forth a chair of my own and watched the two play. Neither had acknowledged I was there. Each time the young lady took a piece I noticed that another portion of the plant across from her would burn and sizzle away.

The same could not be said for the plant. I saw no change in the girl's face or body when she lost a piece. Her brow was made of small twigs and leaves, they were furrowed in concentration. Her eyes darted across the board after each move.

As the game went on the plant's moves gradually started to make less sense. Each time a piece was lost it would twist violently as chunks of it were burnt, it would then make a hasty move, a desperate move. The woman stayed very still the entire time. Moving only when needing to and never making any sort of gesture of irritation when she played a move poorly.

 

Only when she put the plant into Check did I see a small smirk pass her face. Two moves later, two loss pieces later and the plant barely had enough substance to it to shove pieces into squares.

The moment it was put into Checkmate fire consumed the rest of it. The woman leaned back in the chair, looked over at me.

I smiled and brought my chair around. I sat down and started to put the pieces back onto the board in the starting positions.

 

The beeping of my watch brought me back. I wanted to get this typed out while it was still fresh in my head.

 

This is...fascinating.

 

[hbenton]

There's apparently some sort of symbolism going on here. Unless there isn't. To quote Freud, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

 

I look forward to reading more of your progress log.

Do you suppose the dryad-esque girl might Zala, or perhaps an evolution of Zala?