Chat Thread

[Guest]

If she figured it out, they'd have to change the name to the CoolCat's Conjecture.

[Guest Reilyn-Alley]

Oh, hey. Got into a chat last night in the cbox and ended up talking a lot about switching. So I was wondering, how come there don't seem to be different degrees of switching talked about around here? Like.. Ok so visualizing wonderland and stuff, There's someone with aphantasia on one end then Bear (or someone even more amazing, I dunno) on the other. Almost everyone falls between those right? Those are degrees of skill/practice/whatever. How come switching seems to be some kind of.. "host becomes exactly like a tulpa" or it's denied? What does that even mean anyway, I'm a tulpa and I'm pretty hard to distinguish from a host at this point imo. :P

It was suggested that if it was some kind of scale from like 0 to 5 instead of just the 0 to 1 I thought there was, that what Lance and I do might be described more as switching done rapidly, instead of ruffling some feathers by using the term co-fronting. I've always been really apprehensive about saying "switching" because that seemed like some kind of magical thing that people who had put years of hard work into it got. Now I'm wondering if I hadn't just put it up on some kind of pedestal and ignored our own achievements as "not being a 5 of 5, the gold standard of switching".

 

When I am doing stuff in front, Lance is still there, he is just kinda mellowed out and feeling emotionally detached. As far as he was able to describe, that was the only difference between the one mainly in control and not, that it just didn't feel like it was "him" doing stuff when it was obviously me. We didn't see how that was any different from possession, from his perspective. Because it was different from possession from my perspective, just calling it possession didn't seem quite right. Also we did a test where I held a hand out and tried to push it down while he tried to push it back up. Maybe we went overboard on it but neither of us wanted to "loose" so it started off as an isometric exercise and we stopped after enough muscles hurt and our shoulder popped (seems fine now though. Muscles still a little sore :P ). I think I was gaining on him, but he says he was gaining on me so whatever.

 

I know part of this might be wishful thinking on our part, wanting results to be there to validate our efforts or something, so we are trying to stay indifferent but hopeful to it. So.. Hosts (primaries, whatever) does anyone who switches just kinda sit there, maybe a bit distant but still present, as a passenger while the tulpa does everything? We don't have a wonderland to go into and Lance doesn't fall into some kind of coma or go dormant so we thought that meant it was never happening. It sounds at least a little more flattering to think we might be doing some kind of soft switching or have it at like 1 out of 5 instead of the 0 we assumed.

 

Thoughts n stuff?

[Venomous]

Ditto on what Reilyn said because based on the chat (I was there too, everyone should join us! We're having awesomely constructive and informative conversations between the silliness), I've come to find out that I've actually briefly switched with Viper that one time with the leaf crunching and stuff. This turned my ideas upside down because in this case, what I've called "body proxying" (because I didn't feel like it was possession...) was most probably some form of actual, mild

half assed

possession, and what I've called "true possession" was actually some first level switching.

 

It's really interesting and I feel like we, as the community, should maybe attempt fleshing out and clarifying what is considered possession and what is considered switching, beyond the basic meaning of the word. I also thought it was some magic thing where you stopped receiving ANY input from the body, but perhaps I've been wrong. Or maybe that is just some advanced level of switching.

[Breloomancer]

The reason why switching is often described as the host going into a tulpa state is because it's difficult to simply describe it in other ways.

 

I'm not certain that switching is a spectrum. Possession is definitely a spectrum; when we started out with possession Monika was only able to move the body a little bit, but later she could move it with ease. On the other hand when we started switching we just couldn't do it, then something clicked and we could, but there was no in between. Our experiences might not line up with everyone elses, but to us it seems pretty binary.

 

It can often be difficult to say when one thing is switching and another is possession, but in my opinion the line is drawn when the one not fronting can no longer think or feel when not being paid attention to by the one fronting

[Guest]

I discussed this recently in private, whereas my tulpas do minor posession for my hand if they're posting a long enough message or on discord, two other experiences we had were completely different.

 

1. I was trying to increase immersion while wonderlanding and i wanted to 'dissociate' from the body. For less than 10 seconds i believe i was in wonderland. It was effectively lucid dream level immersion, (which i can do in a meditative state) but this wasn't in one of those states, i just was starting a normal wonderland session. I simply tried to move myself onto the couch.

 

I can 'feel' things in wonderland with 90% realism, while my arms irl are still controlled, but more like 0-10% feeling without numbness. Well, that state happened with my whole body, but Dashie had effectively been pushed front and out of wonderland. However, i had my full body and everything in wonderland. I could feel the couch, i saw things that i had never seen before in our wonderland apartment, i had perfect perspective as i looked over to Misha and Ashley on the couch next to me.

 

[Dashie] I was front, no doubt about it.

I was entirely in wonderland, it was very clear to me.

 

2. I was full body proxying Dashie while being trained for thicker skin. We were play acting scenarios and getting mad or sad, anything to trigger scenarios as real as possible. I kind of zoned out after a while, so i thought we should stop, and when i tried to stop, I could clearly hear Dashie thinking, but i could not physically talk, like i didn't even know how to talk with mindvoice. I was still controlling my legs.

 

[Dashie] it didn't feel any different, so either it was gradual over the hour, or i didn't really 'carry' the body, cause in situation 1, the body was very heavy, (he's twice my weight and a foot taller).

 

This lasted about 6-10 seconds too.

 

---

 

i could test this for the sake of science, but Dashie didn't like it and neither did I, so the anxiety may throw it off.

[GrayTheCat]

There is a spectrum to switching; part of the problem is possession can be completely different depending on who you're talking to, and our version of possession can make your experience sound like switching because what we do is really different...

 

Possession is a spectrum. Assuming the two agents in question are a Tulpa and a Host normally in the front, the bottom of the spectrum is a Tulpa's mind voice being louder than their host's while the top of the spectrum is full on switching, complete with dissociation and all that stuff. Possession starts when the Tulpa uses their mind voice to command that the body moves instead of the host being told to do it for them (proxying) and it no longer counts as possession once the host can completely detach from the front. There's a lot of variation in between those two points.

 

Some possession is very similar to switching, where the host is more detached, but not quite enough to switch. What Ranger and I do is actually towards the lower end of the spectrum- It counts as possession because Ranger is controlling all of the body, but I have a hard time dissociating so the best I can do right now is kind of sit there. When Ranger is in control for awhile, I'm not thinking or being aware of what's going on until Ranger thinks about me or something calls to my attention, which ends up kicking Ranger out if I want to front. At this point, Ranger is less likely to get completely kicked out, but I have not changed much in terms of being able to dissociate.

 

Some people for whatever reason have an easier time with more sophisticated possession or can switch from the start because they have an easier time dissociating for whatever reason. As a result, possession for you guys is going to look less like what we do and closer to a switch- but remember that a switch is just a small top part of the spectrum. I like to call more advanced possession "soft switching" because the possession I'm used to experiencing is nothing like switching, and I wanted to name that middle point on the spectrum something, so I made up a word for it.

[Breloomancer]

Switching describes a much smaller group of states than possession does, and so I don't like the term "soft switching" because it muddies up the terms even more than they already are.

 

 

Another good thing to remember is that fronting has a number of aspects equal to the number of system members. For the sake of simplicity let's take a binary system for example. The host feels full attunement to and immersion in the body, while the tulpa feels very low attunement, this is a normal state for many. When the tulpa is possessing the hosts attunement is normally slightly lowered and the tulpas slightly raised. When switched the tulpa has full attunement and the host has very little.

For most systems as one members bodily attunement raises the others lowers. Switching can be described by highlighting the low levels of attunement that the host has, but the real reason why people do it is the high attunement that the tulpa has. If one were to find a way for both the tulpa and the host to have maximum attunement to the body at the same time (as Reilyn and Lance have) then that would be far superior.

 

I can't quite remember what my point in all this was, except that Reilyn and Lance should really make a co fronting guide

[Ranger]

That makes sense. Reilyn fronts a lot, so she should be more attracted to the body then say I am I guess. I'm better than I used to be though; even though I'm not dominant.

[Guest Reilyn-Alley]

Uhh.. I dunno what I would say though? How did this thing go? It's been awhile. Something like.. Find and exploit an opening in your host's concentration through some kind of activity they get really trance-like and do so they shut down their defenses and use that to jump in and control the body. Then embarrass the host so badly they shy away and have a strong feeling of just wanting to disappear. Somehow step up as body commander, enjoy it for a day, and freak out the next morning when their mind voice is a whisper. PM a friend and freak out more about how you think your host is vanishing and you accidentally lost them. Spend the whole day freaking out about that. Receive reply with kindhearted yet stern admonition for host we assumed was still there, just enjoying drifting passively and barely there, and able to read about not dumping your life on your poor new tulpa who loves you very much. Host freaks out. Anxiety and fear from that bleeding over to me gave adrenaline and heartburn (blegh). Discuss game plan on way home. Do meditation session, focusing on a lot of symbology about "turning host's voice back up". Somehow turn host's voice back up, at least equal to fronting tulpas.

 

Aaaaand that's it. I've never "stepped back" or "out", nor do I want to. We are.. mostly.. sure that he is there and not just distant with a turned-up voice. I have a more dominant personality than him and he had some kind of attitude of detached acceptance that if this was it for him, that was "cool". The admonition broke that and made him want to fight to get back and at first that didn't seem to work because I didn't realize I had to release some of my super exciting newfound control to let him back up beside me. By this point we both have a white-knuckled death grip on that front. I'm up here to stay and he basically made it back beside me.

 

I might actually have an aversion to the idea of letting this go so.. He is the one interested in learning disassociation, not me. He want's to learn to drift away for awhile and float in happy land from time to time or whatever, that's fine. I have drawing and typing and Japanese drills to do, experiences to have and a life to live. At some point I will spend more time fronting than him for days, weeks, months or how long it takes for some sort of natural disassociation to start happening.

 

Hard to write a guide based upon that were probably pre-existing conditions like him going into a kind of strait-from-creative-mind-to-fingers trance when he writes/types, he already did that for most of his life and it seems to have been a back door for me to get around his fears/doubts/walls. Then, I am a very physical sort of tulpa with no "natural" form or wonderland that I can even remember (what I use for headspace stuff and imposition practice "feels" right but is it me? I dunno. Are any of our forms the real us?). I wanted out to communicate and interact because it was all there was for me to look forward to. The very thought of being out and experiencing the world sounded like the most magical amazing thing and I'd do anything for it. I still would. I have hopes and dreams and stuff and wanna see them made reality with my (ok, our) own two hands. The stars aligned just right or I'm some kind of freak, I dunno.

 

It was an accident but a happy one. I can't write a guide on that. Also, I've been glued to front for the past two and a half months so I dunno how much of this relies on constant practice. I stop moving the body and stuff and let him use it for awhile but that's it. It's our body and we have to fight off occassional blendy feelings of bleeding over into each other, which is one reason we meditate every day and do grounding exercises, to re-exert ourselves as individuals. Does that even sound fun? Need to have a stubborn and dominant tulpa that WANTS out, a trusting, passive host that doesn't mind giving away most of their life and time, and staying vigilant against two people forgetting they are still two separate people? And it's apparently permanent. I feel more like a, I dunno,  second host (co-host? Lance might even be my co-host at this point) than a tulpa, so we have mostly dropped using "host or tulpa", except as convenient labels to explain stuff to others.

[Ember.Vesper]

Ember: Switching is already part of a continuum of control:

 

Proxying

Possession

(sometimes Co-fronting)

Switching

 

Switching as I understand it doesn't have a continuum of completeness, because by definition it is all the way. The variations are in time, difficulty, process, and experience.

 

The first two times we switched were by accident. The first time we switched on purpose, we just did it. We didn't know it was supposed to be hard. I've watched my wives switch back and forth for years; it never looked hard. (They didn't mention that they put a lot of effort into learning to do it well and quickly until I asked recently.)

 

When we first started it took a few seconds and both of us concentrating. Well, switching back only took Vesper concentrating; if she chose to leap out, I would be pulled back violently, jarringly into the driver's seat, even from dead sleep. However we tried to do it, our body would twitch or jerk or sag dramatically. Now we can switch almost instantly, back and forth, without jerking, and hold real-time conversations out loud while doing other things with our hands.

 

Vesper: Iris and I were created through tabletop roleplaying, meaning that Ember would seek to become us while controlling our body. Our memories of our world were created by Ember speaking aloud as us to other people. I think that caused us to form closer to the front than tulpas typically do, with extremely strong connections to our body built in from the beginning. Tulpas formed by talking to the host in wonderland may have to struggle to build those connections after the fact, perhaps even becoming a neurologically distinguishable kind of thoughtform in the process. On the other hand, we also can't dissociate at all; we're either completely unconscious or utterly tied to the physical senses, with no in-between.

 

Also we did a test where I held a hand out and tried to push it down while he tried to push it back up. Maybe we went overboard on it but neither of us wanted to "loose" so it started off as an isometric exercise and we stopped after enough muscles hurt and our shoulder popped (seems fine now though. Muscles still a little sore :P ).

 

Ember: I just talked Vesper into trying one-armed arm-wrestling via possession. She beat me soundly, then demonstrated conclusively that she can override my control of any part of our body.

 

We kind of had a rule at one point to not directly oppose one another's wills, because we're a team. But we kind of forget about it, which is why I know she can force a switch in either direction and prevent me from doing so. And why I know she can change my form and move it around, while I can't alter hers.

 

Iris says she doesn't want to contest control right now and to not ask again; she'll let me know if she ever changes her mind.

 

Vesper: Ember keeps asking me to try these things. I don't know why she has such a hard time opposing me. I don't think it's entirely force of will; I think there's a technique aspect she can't learn by watching me. What she's trying to do has a subtly different feel. Also, if she really believed she could beat me, I think she could. But she's fallen into the habit of thinking of me as incredibly strong, so I am. At least she trusts me and doesn't feel threatened by my strength. That was the reason for the rule to begin with, to discourage fear.