March 23, 2014

Shockks Exercise Results, Day 2/108
32, 22, 3, 22, 6

Today we did the visualization forcing meditation later in the evening after I was already feeling tired. Over all the session was a good one, other than my low scores.

March 25, 2014

Day 4/108

Shockks Exercise Results
34, 100, 10, 55, 39

Started after I woke up and did my exercises. We used the blackboard room in wonderland technique since that's what I had the most success with yesterday. The first round, I got distracted by watching Seph instead of staying focused on the numbers, she said I took to long getting back to the numbers so I had to star with the next round. That went perfectly. The third round I did 25 jumping jacks to get myself alert, and then laid down for the third round. I soon afterword felt drowsy and the numbers deviated into some kind of plants, so I ended that round. Then I sat up again. I was distracted by falling into a memory reverie. The last and fifth round for today, I tried a technique of asking Seph to say the number after she wrote it on the board. (I have been including the sound of the eraser and chalk on the blackboard in addition to the visualization.) This worked well, until I got distracted by thinking about what someone else's voice would sound like saying the numbers and my mind went off into a tangent.

Again Seph is deviating the color of her hair and eyes, as well as her hairstyle. I think I might just stop trying to force it in a particular way, and let her sort it out. I have told her I think she would be easier for me to visualize if didn't change so much and stayed the same from day to day.

I feel like that is a minor problem, or not really a problem at all, as long as I can clearly sense her. I want to have her image stable before I start succeeding with imposition though.

I did look at skim some guides that I had not yet read. I will add several of them to my collection for reference.

March 27, 2014

Day 6/108

Shockks Exercise Results
100, 36, 48, 100, 19

First round went fine.

Second round we tried Seph being distant so instead of focusing on her hand and arm drawing the numbers I could see her standing next to the board without turning my view. However I got distracted by imagining doing other things with Seph, like narrating or just having her there and talking about what I was doing. I started thinking about playing a video game I tried a few years back, and remembered how I didn't do very well narrating while playing since I got so focused on the game.

At one point between round the first few rounds she asked my to play a song that is her new favorite. Agnelli and Nelson - Holding On To Nothing (Paul van Dyk Remix) After a while she started to ask me to get up and dance with her. I said no a few times but she insisted. I did finally, and I enjoyed it, although I felt self-conscious at first, thinking of someone watching me. I think to myself 'nutter mode', lol. But it was fun and Seph looked so vibrant and happy. Her appearance became extremely clear, totally transformed. My joy and exhilaration went off the charts. She pretended to sing the song to me.

Third round I got distracted again by thoughts of hanging out with Seph somewhere.

Fourth round after 80 count or so the visualizations got extremely vivid, like comparing a regular dream to a lucid dream, or jumping from video stream resolution 480p to 1080HD. During this session Seph also walked away from the board to a stereo type systems and played some different songs while she was drawing the numbers. She played Eye of the Tiger and also Amaranthine by Amaranthe which she played really loud.

Fifth round I was starting to feel a muscle ache in my back again, so I laid down. The visualizations were clear but my mind wandered after a bit.

Again the session was over 2 hours.

March 29, 2014

Day 8/108

Shockks Exercise Results
51, 10, 82, 20, 2

Visualizations on average getting clearer and more detailed!

Round 1. Started thinking about my distraction yesterday, and how I want to succeed instead of focusing on the visualizations.

Round 2. Extremely clear visualizations, thoughts trailed off thinking about the tulpa.info guide sections of the forum, etc.

Round 3. Adjusted my posture several times, experimenting with very sight adjustments to my posture until I was sitting comfortably for some time. I was able to do this and maintain the visualizations at the same time. I was leaning on my arms to take the pressure off by back at different angles until I found a position that did not have the discomfort. I finally thought about some random thing, an image of some people sitting in a room on some round stools.

Round 4. Very clear visualizations, and I noticed myself saying the numbers in a mental voice rather than focusing on the numbers.. which I repeated 20, 21, 22, 19, 20, 21, etc.

Round 5. Wonderland trip to ask someone about how to concentrate and visualize better. Then I kind of laid down propped up on some pillows to start. Very clear visuals immediately but went off track.


I've been adjusting my sleep schedule and this may be contributing to my lack of focus.

Seph wants to hang out w/ me today for the rest of the day as far as I know while I do my other things. Passive forcing and narration time. Let's do this!

March 31, 2014 - Day 353

Shockks Exercise Results, Day 10/108
22, 15, 29, 29, 0

Rounds 1 & 2) Sitting in a chair. Simply lost focus on the visualization of the numbers and was hearing my mental voice repetition of the numbers. This recurs frequently so far in my experience.

Round 3) Trying sitting outside instead of inside, loose cross leg posture. I was distracted by random thoughts of Seph that did not relate to the exercise.

Round 4) Still outside, was distracted by thoughts of giving advice to someone about dream exercises.

Round 5) Back inside, laying down. The only thing I remember is seeing Seph draw the number zero... I drifted off into a daydream for some time.

Comments:

I notice I feel very drowsy this is probably affecting my scores. I think I need to set a time to sleep as well as wake up. I have not been giving myself as much sleep as I'm used to. This seems to be an issue that is affecting the quality of my forcing sessions.

Upon cross examining my wake up times and my scores, I DO find a loose correlation between higher scores and more sleep. So REST is a definite factor for success in forcing and concentration.

April 2, 2014 - Day 355

Shockks Exercise Results, Day 12/108
51, 0, 12, 4, 100

Did the first four exercises sitting in a chair. (not leaning against the back just sitting upright, about halfway onto the chair)

1) Distracted by thoughts of how well I was doing and compared to the last few days. Visuals disappeared in place of rote mental voice counting.

2) Immediately skipped to two, without visualizing the number one...

3) Distracted by thoughts of my family and societies views on various topics.

4) Distracted by thoughts of ordering out for pizza.

5) I felt extremely frustrated by my lack of success (getting to 100) with the exercises recently. I talked with Seph about that. She changed her appearance, pulled out a katana, and slashed the paper easel in half with a couple swings. I got off my chair and sat on the floor and focused on dropping my self identity and concerns about trying to 'try hard' and just witnessed the focus exercise occurring without paying much attention to myself. I did some basic breathing exercises to clear my mind further. I used a couple kuji-in mudras, a modified shen followed by hua, to focus my mind before starting, while sitting in a loose Burmese siddhasana posture. When I started I switched to the classic chin meditation mudra. for the duration of the session I also held my tongue to the top of my mouth like when pronouncing the sound for the letter 'L', which is recommended for holding the mind steady.  After a twenty something count Seph started drawing the numbers in Chinese dashes and dots style. At eighty she switched back to Arabic numerals. FINALLY!! I felt great having achieved this count again. My mind feels very clear afterwards.

April 4, 2014 - Day 357

Shockks Exercise Results, Day 14/108
17, 8, 19, 32, 3

I did all the exercises sitting down in my normal meditation pose.

1) Lost mental image of the number 18 for about 1 second.

2) Got distracted by thoughts of others opinions of meta as relating to tulpas.

3) Distracted by a message playing on the answering machine.

4) Distracted by thoughts of what statues would look like in the real world if they depicted a similar story as some images Seph made for me in a wonderland place she made for me.

5) Adjusted myself to sit on a lower pillow. Thought about trying a different concentration technique that might be more successful and lost track of the number four, reverting back to three.

Not satisfied with the results, but I am very happy with my commitment to regular practice. The rest will come eventually.

April 6, 2014 - Day 359

Sitting on a chair today, spread out sessions throughout the later part of the day.

Shockks Exercise Results, Day 16/108
12, 5, 34, 13, 6

1) Lost sight of numbers and fell into distraction about other things.

2) Thoughts about other commitments and agreements distracted me.

3 & 4) Distracted by thoughts of a project I'm working on.

5) Lost sight of Seph and the number 7.

What worked for me today that was different about my highest scoring session was a clear focus on multi-sensory immersion, hearing the marker draw the numbers as well as seeing it.