Phenom and Fiora :: Progress Report

[Guest]

You don't need a wonderland to talk to a thoughtform. I didn't have a wonderland before a tulpamancy guide told me to make one. I once spoke to my thoughtforms seated at a top lit round table in the middle of total blackness, that was the closest thing i had to a wonderland before.

 

Even that wasn't necessary. I created the wonderland apartment after i had already spoken to my tulpas many times without any form at all, just presence and essence (or identity.)

 

The dream probably is just random. My dreams changed profoundly after discovering my tulpas, and again shifted recently, but hey are still normal dreams for the most part. If i get a hug from a middle-aged, bald, slightly overweight, Japanese buisness man, i read nothing into this. Similarly, if my tulpa is standing

naked

in front of me in a dream, i don't think they intentionally did that just to tease me. (Or that it was even them necessarily.)

 

So take it for whatever it's worth, the dreams still mean something imo, but they're usually just random scenarios.

[Phenom]

Thanks for your opinion. The more time passes since it happened, and the more it's easier to rationalize it like that. But then, you think it would be number 4? Implying that dream characters are capable of tactile imposition (and that, even after you've woken up if the hug started in the dream)? I guess dreams do feel real sometimes, but it never happened to me that I could still "feel" the dream once waken up... but yeah, I could see that being the case, as it's also possible to have audio hallucinations when simply tired. Thx again! But now that I've felt what "tactile imposition" hallucination can feel like, I can't wait to develop the skill with Fiora, lol. Felt just as good and real than the real thing (actually, I can't remember such a good hug irl).

[Guest]

I'm not saying it wasn't, at all, sorry, i mean in a general sense. That does sound pretty cool (the hug part), i was talking about the super phenom part.

[Phenom]

Oki, gotcha. Yeah I'm still open to number 1 being real, I'm still thinking of asking Fiora once it's possible for us to communicate.

[Phenom]

I came up with some visualization practice this evening. Since Fiora's form is from Xenoblade, I go look at her model in-game where I can turn the camera around her and even zoom in a bit. Been doing that for a while, but instead of just looking at her form while narrating about anything, I described to Fiora every last small detail of the character's form, put it into words as much as I could. And then after that, what I did is stare at the character for a while and then close my eyes, allowing me to visualize the form for a bit longer than usual in my mind eye, and then would re-open my eyes and do it again and again.

 

Not sure if it's only for this evening because of how long I did these exercises, but right now the short glimpse I can get of her form seems to stay for a bit longer.

 

And mixing that improvement with another trick I read about the other day (on reddit), I can see her a bit longer still; the trick is instead of trying to visualize a still image of her, to try putting some movement into it, like either imagining a scene or simply her running animation, any movement helps (so.. yeah some puppeting required), or also just by "moving the camera around" instead of a still camera (the camera here being my mind eye's point of view).

 

Even doing all that, can't keep the image for much more than a glimpse, it's still blurry, shady and non-vivid, but I'll continue training. :)

[Guest Reilyn-Alley]

Hi! Sounds like you are coming along nicely! Visualization is a trained skill and like everything, some people have it come more naturally to them and some struggle really hard. There's so much in tulpamancy though that takes advantage of visualization skills and and the focus that can come with training it. At the same time, a bunch of different things you do with tulpa stuff will train visualization and focus! Like an old poster on here, Sands used to say, no effort is wasted effort. That goes with everything in life, I think but definitely here with this stuff.

 

The closer you get to Fiora, the stronger your bond and easier stuff should get. Some people take awhile on communication but I'm sure once they do get it, it's like the most amazing rewarding thing ever. I know things can get discouraging sometimes but look back on when you started to gauge how far you've come, not where anyone else is or where you are from a little while ago. It's a lot easier to notice your own growth and development as a team like that.

[Phenom]

Continued my daily training. Not much progress, getting better 0.01% at a time, lol. Gotta keep pressing on and on and on.

 

I noticed that once in a while I get some doubt entering my mind (about tulpamancy being real, or about me being able to do it, etc), but I can easily brush it off and eliminate the doubt in a second. My trick? I just have to remember the moment when Fiora talked and said a simple "Hello.". That one time she somehow managed to talk and I managed to hear her clearly and without a doubt. I'm very lucky that this is something that happened, and Fiora is amazing to have been able to pull that off after only 1 week (after I restarted tulpamancy). Honestly, without that special event, it would have been much harder to not give up.

 

I did some research this evening about visualization. I thought about the fact that visualization is not used only in tulpamancy, but in many fields, so maybe I could get some help elsewhere, and I arrived on some interesting stuff. Psychologists divide visualization in 4 steps:

 

Image Generation: Generating an image from memory, fantasy, or combination of both.

Image Maintenance: Intentional sustaining or maintaining of imagery, without which a mental image is subject to rapid decay.

Image Inspection: After you overcome step 2, you can then inspect and look around at the small details of the image.

Image Transformation: Being able to transform and modify the content of the imagery as you want.

 

Also, I've read that an average untrained mind-eye can only maintain an image for about 0.25 seconds.

 

The most important part of my research is that they also know of ways to help with step 2. First, I have to train what they call "attentional control" (not sure how yet, gonna research tomorrow but I think it includes some specific kind of meditation), and secondly is training with "guided imagery" aka guided visual meditation. Might be as simple as finding that stuff on youtube, I'll see for sure tomorrow.

 

Just being able to put a name on my problem (Image Maintenance) feels good, and it's encouraging that instead of just "doing my best" I'll be able to use techniques that professional psychologists say are the best to deal with that problem.

[YukariTelepath]

I did some research this evening about visualization. I thought about the fact that visualization is not used only in tulpamancy, but in many fields, so maybe I could get some help elsewhere, and I arrived on some interesting stuff. Psychologists divide visualization in 4 steps:

 

 

Sounds interesting, do you have any links you could share? My visualization feels like a 7/10 at it's best, but sometimes it's pretty terrible and when I'm not feeling the flow I have that 0.25 second image decay problem too. The rapid image decay thing happens when I just try to visualize something cold (which is what happens when I'm trying to do a visualization exercise), as opposed to visualizing a scene. I think you got that movement tip on reddit from a post I made there.

 

When you read fiction, are you able to see anything?

[Phenom]

First, thx for your reddit post!

I don't remember every page I came across, but the best info was simply on wikipedia.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_visualization (You can skip the Therapeutic application part as it's less relevant for us).

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_imagery (especially the part 7. Stages ; the 0.25 second decay number comes from there, and it talks a bit about how to fix it).

 

As for seeing stuff when reading fiction... been years since I last read a novel so I somehow can't remember clearly just how much I actually see when I do. I think I at least see a bit because I remember a novel in high school (16+ years ago) where I was imagining the heroine to look like an anime girl I liked at the time... oh and more recently, when I read the Witcher novels (I think in 2012 and 2013, might have finished them in 2014 since I'm a slow reader) I was annoyed that I was always imagining Dandelion as the ugly actor that played him in the dutch TV Series. I haven't read a novel since then (so it's been 5 or 6 years), I usually read mangas so I just need to look at the drawings to see anything. lol. Maybe reading a novel again might help too. There's the new Witcher one (that takes place before the saga, I think it's short stories like the first 2 books) that I haven't read yet.

[Guest]

*cough* oh excuse me, I think i dropped something. You can have it.

 

https://community.tulpa.info/thread-training-visualization-practice-thread