Day 371
Firstly, wow. I can't believe it's been over a year since I started working with Sherlock on the tulpa exercises. It's been almost two and a half years since I met him in the first place, and sometimes that's hard to believe.
But in any case, I wanted to post another update and then discuss some more personal things under a cut. In terms of progress, things are going well, if not as obviously progressive as before. I've stopped doing the basic visualizations of things like lines and colors and have focused more on just visualizing the flat- I do need to get back to visualizing John and Sherlock. I think I've been avoiding that a bit. >.> At the same time, though, I think I should also keep doing the "simpler" stuff- it was fun. At the very least I could adapt it to be a social activity- we could draw or paint *together* to make it a better forcing activity. *shrug*
The flat is coming along well. I've been working on textures, too, and my sense of space is slowly moving forward. I need to put more work into places besides the main living room, as always. The downstairs is fine, and Martin's changed his basement room a bit in my absence (if any of you have seen The Great Game episode, we have moved that flat a LONG way forward!). We saw a behind-the-scenes pic of the bedroom they designed John for the pilot, and I think we may finally stick with that one for John's room. I'm trying to pin down/finalize how I want the architecture of the flat to be, so things have been shuffled a tiny bit, but it's coming together.
Along with visualization, I've also been working on touch, as I said before (both of Sherlock/John and the flat, though I may add in random textures for the heck of it), and hearing. That sort of takes two parts (maybe three). The first is just me playing words in their voices, either from the show to get me started, or words I haven't heard them say before, to try and coax their imagined voice along. The other part is actual conversation, which often includes less actual hearing. Sometimes I hear their mindvoice, but it's often not clear, and more often it feels like I'm being given words as if from a prompter or something. It's hard to explain, but I think I'm finally starting to understand the idea of differentiating between your thoughts and their words. It's even easier when I'm speaking out loud, though I don't do that often. The sort of third way is that, when I'm falling asleep (and NOT listening to ASMR videos, cause I realized that ruins me for forcing, it just knocks me out) I'll first imagine their voices and then I'll tease it towards "original" words, like I said above. Then, at some point when I get close to sleep, I'll start to properly hear things. This hasn't happened often and it almost always startles me (I think that's a better word than "scare") but it's interesting.
I've been hesitant and grumbly about this before, but I think I may also start work on tasting and smelling. Smelling THEM seems a bit complicated at the moment, considering I don't know how I *want* them to smell, nor what people smell like that isn't BO or my own, but I could probably start with things and then extrapolate/make things up when I get better. Tasting… I feel like I'm getting "ghosts" of these two senses occasionally, if I manage to forget about my real-world mouth and nose, but then sometimes I'll become conscious of breathing again and it's lost. I'm going to explore this some more. (I don't think Sherlock's too keen on getting licked, though. :P)
Had an interesting dream last night. I wish I could remember more of the story, but Sherlock and I (and maybe John?) were in my house. I forget what we were doing downstairs, but later I'm in my room and Sherlock comes in. I think I wanted to have sex (there was some emotional reason I can't remember) but he said no. He ended up coming to sit on my bed and I was in/on his lap, which was very nice.
It's not so much the what that makes this dream interesting to me, but how it made me feel. I remember being able to touch in this dream, which is always a big thing for me, and it was about Sherlock, which hadn't happened in a while… but more than that, we actually got to interact, and it felt real. (Later on in the dream I was IMing with who I thought was Sherlock but ended up being a roleplayer, and that made me horribly upset and angry.) I don't know how often this happens with other people, but I feel as if there's a difference between dreaming ABOUT someone (like a tulpa or SB), and then dreaming WITH someone, like you're interacting with them and they're truly there. (I know that I "could just ask Sherlock" if he was there or not, but I don't trust the answers I get to questions like that at this point, so it's just me reasoning it out for now.)
…Touch is, I think, the most important skill for me to develop apart from communication with these two. Being able to touch them hits home that they're real, and it's just emotionally wonderful in itself. I can't wait until we get there.
Anyway, I'll try and keep working hard so I have some more interesting updates for next time! Hope you're all doing well. :)
But in any case, I wanted to post another update and then discuss some more personal things under a cut. In terms of progress, things are going well, if not as obviously progressive as before. I've stopped doing the basic visualizations of things like lines and colors and have focused more on just visualizing the flat- I do need to get back to visualizing John and Sherlock. I think I've been avoiding that a bit. >.> At the same time, though, I think I should also keep doing the "simpler" stuff- it was fun. At the very least I could adapt it to be a social activity- we could draw or paint *together* to make it a better forcing activity. *shrug*
The flat is coming along well. I've been working on textures, too, and my sense of space is slowly moving forward. I need to put more work into places besides the main living room, as always. The downstairs is fine, and Martin's changed his basement room a bit in my absence (if any of you have seen The Great Game episode, we have moved that flat a LONG way forward!). We saw a behind-the-scenes pic of the bedroom they designed John for the pilot, and I think we may finally stick with that one for John's room. I'm trying to pin down/finalize how I want the architecture of the flat to be, so things have been shuffled a tiny bit, but it's coming together.
Along with visualization, I've also been working on touch, as I said before (both of Sherlock/John and the flat, though I may add in random textures for the heck of it), and hearing. That sort of takes two parts (maybe three). The first is just me playing words in their voices, either from the show to get me started, or words I haven't heard them say before, to try and coax their imagined voice along. The other part is actual conversation, which often includes less actual hearing. Sometimes I hear their mindvoice, but it's often not clear, and more often it feels like I'm being given words as if from a prompter or something. It's hard to explain, but I think I'm finally starting to understand the idea of differentiating between your thoughts and their words. It's even easier when I'm speaking out loud, though I don't do that often. The sort of third way is that, when I'm falling asleep (and NOT listening to ASMR videos, cause I realized that ruins me for forcing, it just knocks me out) I'll first imagine their voices and then I'll tease it towards "original" words, like I said above. Then, at some point when I get close to sleep, I'll start to properly hear things. This hasn't happened often and it almost always startles me (I think that's a better word than "scare") but it's interesting.
I've been hesitant and grumbly about this before, but I think I may also start work on tasting and smelling. Smelling THEM seems a bit complicated at the moment, considering I don't know how I *want* them to smell, nor what people smell like that isn't BO or my own, but I could probably start with things and then extrapolate/make things up when I get better. Tasting… I feel like I'm getting "ghosts" of these two senses occasionally, if I manage to forget about my real-world mouth and nose, but then sometimes I'll become conscious of breathing again and it's lost. I'm going to explore this some more. (I don't think Sherlock's too keen on getting licked, though. :P)
Had an interesting dream last night. I wish I could remember more of the story, but Sherlock and I (and maybe John?) were in my house. I forget what we were doing downstairs, but later I'm in my room and Sherlock comes in. I think I wanted to have sex (there was some emotional reason I can't remember) but he said no. He ended up coming to sit on my bed and I was in/on his lap, which was very nice.
It's not so much the what that makes this dream interesting to me, but how it made me feel. I remember being able to touch in this dream, which is always a big thing for me, and it was about Sherlock, which hadn't happened in a while… but more than that, we actually got to interact, and it felt real. (Later on in the dream I was IMing with who I thought was Sherlock but ended up being a roleplayer, and that made me horribly upset and angry.) I don't know how often this happens with other people, but I feel as if there's a difference between dreaming ABOUT someone (like a tulpa or SB), and then dreaming WITH someone, like you're interacting with them and they're truly there. (I know that I "could just ask Sherlock" if he was there or not, but I don't trust the answers I get to questions like that at this point, so it's just me reasoning it out for now.)
…Touch is, I think, the most important skill for me to develop apart from communication with these two. Being able to touch them hits home that they're real, and it's just emotionally wonderful in itself. I can't wait until we get there.
Anyway, I'll try and keep working hard so I have some more interesting updates for next time! Hope you're all doing well. :)