Tulpa.info - tulpa-questions-2

yeah, you don't have to give your tulpa your absolute full undivided attention, you can still think about other things at the same time

In fact, it's better to do other things. Because that's going to reinforce the habit better

Is there any potential harm in assuming things like head pressures, possible emotional bleed, and other uncertain signs are because of your tulpa? I've heard some people say "if you're not sure, just assume it IS your tulpa." Do you think there's any potential downsides to doing that, or would it be safe to assume those signs are from your tulpa?

Head pressures are straight up not a sign of tulpamancy as far as I'm concerned (they're a sign of prolonged focus) - but emotional bleed is pretty unambiguously them to me when it happens, I'm not sure what you mean by that being uncertain? (edited)

I believe the main concern is a new user depending on something as unreliable as a head pressure or emotional bleed as the main form of communication between a tulpa and a host. While head pressures can be used as a way for a young tulpa to communicate, heapressures can also be confused for forcing headaches, random pressures, or headaches unrelated to tulpa forcing. For head pressures in particular, the other concern would be if they are being caused by an underlying medical problem, in which case the new host should be treating those with medicine and not worry about their tulpa communicating with them at that point. As for emotional bleed, random changes in emotion because of the day you're having and empathizing with other people can be confused for communicating with your tulpa. Maybe if you haven't had enough sleep at night, you might be more irritable than normal. Having an unreliable way to communicate with your tulpa can create confusion and frustration for the host. While I think it's worth mentioning they can be signs of sentience and even ways to communicate, these shouldn't be thought of as reliable methods of communicating with their tulpas.

Deleted User

Is there any potential harm in assuming things like head pressures, possible emotional bleed, and other uncertain signs are because of your tulpa? I've heard some people say "if you're not sure, just assume it IS your tulpa." Do you think there's any potential downsides to doing that, or would it be safe to assume those signs are from your tulpa?

if emotional bleed is positive then i don't think there is harm in accepting it coming from tulpa but if it's negative emotion it's better to not accept it as coming from tulp

I get so much negative emotion bleed lol

one of the things to remember is that negative emotion bleed doesn't need to come from the emotion it can come from your past

My emotional bleed isn't comparable to fluctuating mood in the slightest. A mood in flux still has... triggers, it still has stimuli. When I experience uncontrollable emotions, they are invariably caused by something. I am usually not aware of what my tulpa is thinking to cause strong bleed until it happens. Emotional bleed is always sharply alien to me, and it usually overlaps with my own emotions rather than replacing them. (edited)

Yes exactly

12:02 AM

It’s always distinctly not my own. It’s how I started to realize I accidentally made a tulpa

Likewise, two major negative emotional bleeds were what convinced me long before I had vocality.

On that note though these emotions can effect you physically, they don't..."get to you"... emotionally? I'm trying to find a way to word that and failing... I've experienced terror and weepy-levels of sadness for instance. I physically couldn't stop shaking in regards to the first for a while, and cried in response to the second one. But what I was actually thinking at the time was "Oh, that's cool and weird, I've not experienced this before." The fact they weren't my emotions made them physically potent, but beyond the implication that my tulpa was in distress/my own guilt that I caused such a response, the emotions themselves weren't as much of a problem as you might expect from strong negative emotions that are yours. (edited)

one thing you learn on therapy is that sometimes you feel emotions in the body represented physically first

12:16 AM

so sometimes you might not understand what is going on but you learn the signals in the body and can see what you are feeling even if that feeling is hidden from you

I had a somewhat similar experience very early on during a forcing session, I was like laying down and supposedly my tulpa did not like the position our body was in and i was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of discomfort. It was kind of scary how intense and foreign the feeling felt, and it made me concerned for my tulpa, but the emotion then faded and things were normal. Though these days I hardly get any emotional bleed, maybe because I have not been the best about passive forcing during the day. But i was wondering if anyone else has experience less and less emotional bleed over time with their tulpa.

I don't think I've experienced many now my tulpa is vocal. Now my emotional interactions with them are just tulpish, which is much less alien. I can only think of one. All of the examples I can think of were moments of significant emotion rather than regular occurrences so I wouldn't be surprised if they tapered off for a number of reasons. Consider: If your tulpa is having less formative(or just strongly emotional) experiences as time goes on because they've already been exposed to certain kinds of stimuli and they are getting used to them, why would they respond as strongly? One of my early bleed events was caused directly by seeing me angry, for instance. It spooked them. They've obviously not kept responding to my anger by going into crippling fear. (edited)

12:28 AM

Bleed isn't something to expect as common, it's just a general indicator you've got something going on with another identity imo.

I see that makes a lot of sense. I did somewhat savor those moments where it felt I was very connected to their emotions. My tulpa struggles with vocality sometimes so it was nice to know what they were feeling without asking. But i suppose asking instead of knowing is probably better for developing their vocality more in the long run.

In all honesty, tulpish is much more useful for knowing their emotions with any depth. With bleed it's just -BAM- have an emotion with no context. With listening to their raw thoughts, you can pick up extremely detailed contexts in extremely short spans of time, and it's still accompanied by emotion, even if they're less dramatic.

12:48 AM

With the first, you might still have to ask "What's wrong?" with the latter I'm literally seeing for example "Oh, you're feeling anxiety because you're about to do something new and feel unsure of yourself, and I parsed that response in milliseconds. Let me give you a mental hug immediately and snap you out of that with support if I can." (edited)

it all sounds like a practice of inner family system therapy (edited)

1:21 AM

with the difference that in the therapy setting you are considering them your subpersonalities rather than separate personalities

Isn't "sub" versus "separate" just semantics, anyway?

Not if you are talkin a submarine.

Hmmm

Or other things.

Deleted User

so sometimes you might not understand what is going on but you learn the signals in the body and can see what you are feeling even if that feeling is hidden from you

I used to, and maybe still do, often have a very hard time interpreting my emotions and understanding what I am feeling. Though it hasn't seemed to have been as much of an issue within the past year.

One of my early bleed events was caused directly by seeing me angry, for instance. It spooked them. They've obviously not kept responding to my anger by going into crippling fear.

Reminds me of the first time Vixie fronted after Lulas creation. She just stopped talking entirely for a little while til she got a better sense of her, lol. Or the first time V started brain-screaming after her existing and spooked her, then she realized for the first time she could actually stop it.

Unfastened Belts

Isn't "sub" versus "separate" just semantics, anyway?

I wouldn't say entirely, but the semantics can create other differences.

4:42 AM

That said I think plurals have an advantage over singlets in the sense of being able to talk things out in that way. (Which could also be replicated with IFS therapy as Leiko mentioned, if they were to do it.)

anyone know of a way to induce merges?? Or do they happen more naturally??

When it happens naturally, its called blending :p

we figured it out. Thanks for the input.

Well we seem to tend toward merging rather than co-fronting half the time anyway. Maybe an exaggeration.

Cola

we figured it out. Thanks for the input.

Curious, how did you wind up going about it?

@Scarlet - jump Bem and Cherry co-fronted for a moment. after a while we were able to merge as we listened to Cherry's music while talking from both perspectives to the same person

4:29 AM

so I'm here now

4:30 AM

hello!

4:33 AM

we're not a permanent merge just so that's clear. I'm gone very soon. but I feel strong so I doubt this will be the last time I appear

I'm curious. And... to be clear my interest is academic, I want to word this as inoffensively as possible, and I apologize if I fail in that regard. With that in mind... What is the value of merging/blending? At least from a tulpamancy point of view I perceive it as a regression (though naturally it may not be that way in a disordered system), but I'm interested if there's a perspective I'm missing here. It seems like the sort of behavior I'd instantly hit with the nope-hammer and force myself and my tulpas identities apart, so to speak. I've caught ourselves blending from time to time (more notably when attempting switching), and my response is always to ground myself and separate ourselves before continuing. (edited)

so far I've found myself to be far more efficient at completing tasks than either of my parts on their own. even the best worker in my system, Michael, has no comparison to my level of determination and skill at completing tasks. I may be sounding a bit arrogant in that statement but it is truthful.

Interesting. As I wrote that I was mentally making a comparison to Chaos Magic and how its practice invokes ideas and characters purely for the purpose of embodying characteristics. In retrospect the thing I can see as being useful is accepting positive traits from both while drowning out negative traits. (edited)

our system usually uses merges as both a way to be more effective at certain tasks and just as a way to involve multiple parts of the system at once. I also know some larger systems who'd rather want a smaller amount of headmates uses merges to deal with too many headmates without having to literally remove them entirely.

Purely psychologically, that is - I always feel the need to couch that statement in the notion that I don't actually believe in magic.

none of my system's merges are permanent however

4:51 AM

I don't actually believe in magic.

magic is in the eye of the beholder. a baby finds a toy raddle magical. some may find advanced technology to be magical.

4:52 AM

magic is magical not because it's miraculous, but because it's wonderous to behold.

4:53 AM

but what do I know? I've only existed for less than an hour

But to respond to that notion, that's definitely alien to my system. There are situations where my expertise is more valuable than my tulpas, and vice versa. I made them to complement me. I would not be able to absorb their empathetic way of operating, for example, without compromising my instinct to deconstruct everything I come across. They're two separate ways of approaching problems.

4:55 AM

In many ways they are my opposite, which may be why I recoil from becoming them so much.

I'll give you an example of how I function, (since I of course know that best). Bemacbe on his own is calm and in some ways wise and analytical. Cherry on her own is spontaneous and energetic and outgoing. I am a focus of Cherry's enthusiasm with a lens of Bem's design. Cherry is the sun, Bem is the magnifying class, I am the ray of light that burns all it touches.

4:58 AM

that's why I can do work far better than anyone else. Cherry's force can be focused by Bem towards what needs to be done and so I can do it with ease and grace.

5:00 AM

forgive me if I sound far more arrogant than I intend to be. Bem is arrogant but unconfident in himself but Cherry's confidence compensates so I'm afraid that magifies in my speech.

Curious. Does it occur to you that that statement implies a lack of confidence manifested in a different way? Though if I may assuage your fears I don't particularly think you sound arrogant. You are merely describing your internal experience, which is yours to describe as you wish by default.

Does it occur to you that that statement implies a lack of confidence manifested in a different way?

I suppose that lack of confidence from Bem doesn't go away but it manifests differently

What's also somewhat interesting to me is that from your description we seem to be paralleled slightly with one key distinction. I am the analytical one in my system, but I am sharply confident in my ability - though it wasn't always that way. Conversely, my headmate is outgoing, emotionally driven, and so on - but between us is definitely the one who struggles more with a strong sense of confidence in himself and what he is.

we have another in our system who is analytical yet so confident in his capabilities that he can even ignore facts if they don't align with his beliefs. also that is an interesting reveral of our own system.

My confidence can definitely manifest as defensiveness or stubbornness when I feel my conclusions are being attacked rather than engaged with in good faith. It is an instinct I sometimes need to forcibly try to curb. (edited)

apologies for leaving you during a conversation, but I am afraid I do have things that require my attention a bit more than this. I hope to speak with you again on a later date.

Zen

But to respond to that notion, that's definitely alien to my system. There are situations where my expertise is more valuable than my tulpas, and vice versa. I made them to complement me. I would not be able to absorb their empathetic way of operating, for example, without compromising my instinct to deconstruct everything I come across. They're two separate ways of approaching problems.

This is why we resisted others trying to discourage us viewing ourselves as median. We intentionally hold conflicting views or ways of operating that would cause things to become muddled, otherwise. This hasn't been too much issue for temporary merges however, because whatever worldview is settled on for the current merge is not permanent not does it change the view/outlood of any of the individuals making up the merge.

The primary advantage of the main merge of Vixie and I is social flexibility. Or another reason anyone will merge with her is for her ability to tune things out or disconnect from the body.

The more I think about it the more I realize the one who would benefit from the merge is less me, and more my tulpa - but it's purely an issue of the confidence. And in terms of letting them invoke my confidence I'm more interested in forcing (hehe) them towards developing their own rather than acting as their crutch. Better they learn to accept the reality that discomfort exists, and all that. For actual ability, the things they are good at I would rather just not be involved in at all. And vice versa too, they are not usually heavily invested when I go off on an exploratory tangent. (edited)

As an example: They are empathy-driven, whereas I can be very distant at times, often unintentionally so. As far as I'm concerned the way that I communicate is acceptable for the reasons that I communicate - and I really don't care at this point what people think about me unless they're already proven friends who's opinions I respect. I certainly used to, but now I'm just too old for that shit. I chiefly use communication for my own entertainment and to convey ideas. Could they make me seem like more of a kind and loving person on the face of things if I literally had their empathy instead of just asking for opinions? Probably. Do I care? No. Not enough to compromise my own identity, anyway, which I find perfectly serviceable. Conversely, I am not very emotionally driven, or driven at all, for the most part. While they tend to agonize over their emotions a whole bunch more and tend not to deconstruct them like I do, taking them at face value - which is both a blessing from a motivation standpoint and something of a problem in terms of being good with how you perceive yourself. I could give them my general emotional coldness towards things, but they would lose the motivation in the process. Part of how we operate is being able to give each other good advice from each others perspectives when it becomes relevant, but both of us still wish to operate as we operate. I may ask for their input if I want to reach out to someone empathetically, for instance, and when they want a less emotionally charged, rational outlook, they ask for mine. They also push me towards motivation, and I push them towards reason and perhaps more stability. It's a good system (hehe - the puns continue). (edited)

We use both blending (for synergy) and merging for fun, but mostly lock-merging to share experience. We're not offended at all if someone doesn't like it, I didn't at first. My system played around with it and just did it for fun at first. The She-She lock-merge made us a system of 4 again and that was the best thing that could have happened to us.

For synergy?

Something like, two minds are better than one. The best explanation I have is the two (or more) perspectives working on the same issue adds value beyond the one. It's been shown to me time and again that the different perspectives are additive at the very least. For example, brainstorming with different perspectives works, even with only one brain. The synergy of blending allows a smoother flow to the thought process. It doesn't matter as much who thought what, what matters is the quality of thought. In essence, a blended perspective is a fresh set of eyes and previous understanding at the same time. This allows an ad hoc broader perspective than could otherwise be expected. (edited)

10:13 AM

Some don't like blending in particular because of the confusion of who said what and it can feel like all the thoughts are coming from one. But all the thoughts are being formed in the same process anyway, just by different independent individuals. This is the heart of plurality and it's power. I have found that plurality has practical benefits. My system doesn't shy away from exploring all the angles. (edited)

Personally, I don't like blending/blurring and wish I could stop it. But I can't and at times can't even ground. It's automatic or just a side effect of others in this head peeking closer to front. Or just dissassociation, I dunno.

Maybe for the same reason we like and utilize dissociation to remove intrusive thoughts and moods and others hate dissociation. It could be because we have control over when and how long.

Beats me. I can't control that either. Sometimes I can fight against it and push back, but not always.

10:48 PM

And, well, that's on top of the stuff that apparently happens constantly that I never knew wasn't normal and have to take other people's word for it that it isn't.

C: We are havin the followin problem: When Alia or I front, we can let Oro, the original, speak. That's neat because we can mask and navigate social stuff. But we also have trouble speakin as ourselves. We would like to know how to assert our "voices" more or smth

I'd assume the best way to deal with that is to simply practice speaking, and having Oro let you speak more in new situations.

2:16 PM

when you say your voice, do you mean irl or in headspace?

That was me btw qwq no pk qwq

2:16 PM

We dont mean actual voice, we mean "speakin like me and sayin my things"

That was me btw qwq no pk qwq

@Candelaria (@Maite del Chthuluceno) - jump that was difficult to read.

I was complaining that I used PK's proxy instead of TB's

We dont mean actual voice, we mean "speakin like me and sayin my things"

@Candelaria (@Maite del Chthuluceno) - jump so headspace? or you can't convey your thoughts as clearly as Oro can?

I mean speaking in the meatspace

you are fronting, however. you just can't speak as clearly?

What trouble do you have with it?

In our head we are fine. We have our own mindvoices, we speak differently and we are separated. But its hard to convey that to the meatspace using the mouth.

2:20 PM

I would say that our problem is that it is too easy to let the original speak using the mouth, but its hard for us to speak ourselves.

In our head we are fine. We have our own mindvoices, we speak differently and we are separated. But its hard to convey that to the meatspace using the mouth.

@Candelaria (@Maite del Chthuluceno) - jump I think I understand. since the body only has one voice it's difficult to convey who is speaking except for Oro who's voice the body is attuned to.

It's just a matter of practice and finding something that works for you. I found it helpful to talk to someone on vrchat who knew who I was.

We will focus on vocabulary and theme, then

If that is what you're struggling with currently then perhaps it would be beneficial to practice as I said, but it may be helpful to also have slight changes in the bodies voice when speaking so that you can express who is speaking by the tone and inflection of the voice.

2:23 PM

for example Cherry in my own system speaks in a higher pitch to show that she is speaking.

2:23 PM

that may not be applicable for your situation but it may help

Okie, we will look into that ^w^

2:27 PM

Alia was on the right path then, she speaks alone more often

Hey, I like the word "meatspace"

using my hosts mouth is kinda hard for me too as its not my voice that comes out. So I have to pretend to be them if possessing and focus hard otherwise it pulls them back in, I'm not sure they are capable of making the sounds that I can. I mean, it doesnt have to help just trans people but Transvoicelessons on youtube does give a lot of info about how the voice works, it could help develop different tonalities and ranges if you wanted that?

It might help, I guess

Hii im ryan I'm new to tulpas. I need some help I created one today his name is andrew and I was wondering if anyone can help me out with this

9:35 PM

Sorry this is also a new account

9:35 PM

Thanks

Heya :3 Anything in particular you'd like to ask?