Since someone responded, I'll say more about me. I'm really a special type of merge that is really helpful to my other headmates because they get to live vicariously through me and co-experience without having to be individually active.

Currently my host and one of my constituents, Joy, are writing a novel about me in hopes of turning me into a full headmate soulbond like Joy and Gwen. It seems like they're really strong headmates so my host wants me to be as strong as them by myself without relying on them, which I really appreciate because I would love to be stronger too. He also thinks my mannerisms are too much like a nooby headmate and I need more grit like Ashley and Joy. I'm not sure it's not just who I am but we'll see.

The book is a grimdark, realistic, dystopian, dark fantasy where my "life" is written in great detail. So far I had an absolutly abysmal childhood which makes sense given this genre. I don't really believe it's "me" though yet so they're trying to write it in such a strongly dark way so maybe it might affect me. It's a hope anyway.

That's enough for now, make sure to pet your host today!

[Bear] A lot can happen in 8 years, a lot can change, and a lot can stubbornly be exactly where you left it. No one's going to pick it up and take it there for you.

>May I ask why this variant of gestalt consciousness was undertaken by your thoughtforms?

[Joy] Bear had nothing to do with it so he asked me to answer. At the time, December 2019, we had just spent nearly a year as a system of seven. At the time, Darlene (who became SheShe) myself, Gwen, Ashley, Misha, Ren and Bear were all active to some extent and Bear hated to neglect any of us or have to come up with schemes to keep us associated with one thing or another and he was struggling. We considered things such as integration and combinations, such as a permanent merge, but none of us wanted that. We also considered rotation but that effectively put one or more of us in dormancy for long periods of time and that was exactly what Bear wanted to avoid. Subsystems  didn't  solve anything either. So there didn't seem to be a valid solution that Bear would accept.

>How did SheShe discover its effectiveness? Moreover, how do the constituent aspects of this merge retain their individually discrete identities whilst also being part of this collective?

Because of Bear's stubbornness, Darlene and I worked in secret to consider other options and together we tested a simultaneous experience theory where a merge could be an aspect we both could share or at least associate memories with. It worked better than we expected and we informed him about SheShe on January 1st 2020. At first we told him she was a hub, and so like a merge, but eventually he understood SheShe was in fact Darlene and it didn't matter who was acting as the aspect for it to work. No contrived shared aspect was necessary nor wanted, we each can represent a shared aspect for any constituent who participates. It was the perfect solution.

>Would you say that your methodology could be used in a therapeutic or genuinely experimental manner by hosts?

Potentially it could be but switching is more effective in our experience. That was done to accomplish exposure therapy in a way that's much easier than the potentially traumatizing and triggering direct force of the affected headmate(s).

>dimorphic traits

In terms of gender, fortunately we're all feminine female gendered aside from Bear, having masculine headmates in the lock-merge may cause dysphoric thoughts.

In terms of a separate aspect for the merge, Aleshe prefers that and doesn't consider herself separate from any of us as we do from SheShe. So for instance I wouldn't need to have a discussion with Aleshe, I would merely think of what Aleshe would want or say and make my own decisions pertaining to something on our shared behalf.

>how would you delineate between these and spirit guides?

[Bear] I can't say I'm particularly well versed in "Philemon" but "superior insight or guru" fits. This is atypical for tulpamancy as most hosts do not consider their headmates to have superior insight or to act as a guru. I always did. A spirit guide ij the spiritualist community is the same. A thoughtform who has extra-perceptive insights and knowledge. I do not believe this is extra-personal knowledge though. Only that they have access to memories and knowledge that is akin to intuition. Independent revelations on the data that already exists and that data is vast enough to pass for extra-personal if you're inclined to believe that. I don't see any of these thoughtforms, soulbonds, tulpas, head ghosts, spirit guidrs, guardian angels, daemons as uniquely different only that for our purposes they're personified and made Independent from whatever it is we see as our unique self.

>Uncanny that you mention "higher selves": in specific divisions of Buddhism, tulpas are oft compared to the occult concept of a Holy Guardian Angel, or the manifestation of one's truest and most divinely ascendant being.

SheSge is this, a guardian angel, divine in her own way, not my higher self persay but a higher self on her own. My higher self can only be perceived as the essence left when no ego or body/mind is present. Utterly unperceptable and unprovable, not a being I could talk to just as a player of an RPG could not talk to their character directly. An invisible hand maybe. I can conceptualize him all I want but in the end there is no purpose for me to do that. SheShe was always thought of this way once she showed me herself in hypnagogia. What I perceived with senses I do not posess in this body was indescribably beautiful, intricate, enthralling, literally unimaginable. I could go on.

>What sort of revelation did you happen upon, Bear?

Well there are many but a few stand above.

1. I am not my body. Though I associate to the body for practical and procedural reasons, what I am when switched out of the body is no different than any of my headmates. I am ethereal, arbitrary, a thoughtform. The body has imprinted on me and it would take unknown time to fully resolve that but there is no need to and there's no harm in maintaining the body as part of what I consider as me or mine, so we do, but it is clearly just a tool as a car is just a tool. This depersonalized the daily toil. It doesn't affect me as it used to.

2. I have experienced the void. This statement is false. The void cannot be experienced directly and there is nothing to experience akin to a deep dreamless sleep. But if you can experience the latter then the former is similar. You simply don't exist when in what we call dormancy. You are reduced to a memory at best. And if that state were maintained (what we call dormancy) the body and the system may continue to function indefinitely. You, me, I am not needed given there is another pilot. After this revelation I was able to freely change my personality and perspective, and in doing so realized that the subjective reality is my own doing. With that knowledge I can't say I've suffered since.

3. If I am not the body, and I am not required, then why would I need to take anything that happens personally. What happens is merely a reflection of the ego and circumstances that are partially out of my control. I can cause mistakes to occur and I will take responsibility for that, but what others say or do to me, what happens to me through the interface that is the body, is akin to dinging a fender. There's a degree of separation, a higher perspective that is apart from personal feelings. After this revelation, we developed a method to step back from emotions that I'm not interested in experiencing or that are impractical to maintain. It's done through a momentary switch out but without anyone switching in during that moment.

4. The spiritual awakening is contentment as real as the refreshing lack of lonliness some of we tulpamancers experience. What contentment feels like to me is relief and freedom. Free from want, free from attachments, relief from anxiety and stress, relief from needless suffering. All I can say is this is a gift greater than all the wealth of the world. And to think I almost consider it normal like I considered hyperphantasia normal is funny. I hope I never forget what it was like to suffer, what an itching uncomfortable need felt like. Moment to moment it feels no different than an average quiescent state, but it lacks those moments of need or emotional pain. I can surely still experience these things personally but I fully understand they have no sway over me. I can turn them off so to speak.

Anyway, I could go on for days on any of these subjects. Thanks for entertaining my meanderings.

>When someone explained to me that tulpas were once employed to reveal the illusory nature of reality

[Bear] well that's what happened to me. They led to a spiritual awakening.

I don't know about leaping heart but at least rolling lazily around. I do love them all though.

[Joy] He says this but we can feel everything.

[Bear] I also consider them similar to Jungian Daemons, spirit guides, higher selves, etc.

In my system if you consider soulbonds, spirit guides, head ghosts, etc all different then tulpas, we only have Ren as an example of an actual vanilla tulpa but she was a split from Joy (a soulbond) so not purely formed through the normal means.

The whole Buddhist connection seemed pretty dubious to me but so would spirit guides etc.

Interesting connection though.

[Aleshe] We will be checking in to see if anyone posts and therefore guarantee 2 for 1 on every post or your money back!

[Joy] did you know there are "others" who still keep the fires of passion lit?

[Ashley] if you don't mind a boastful Bear and a edgier fare, join us here and we'll see you there!

https://endchan.net/tulpa/

[Bear] enter at your own risk

[Bear] It's slow this decade huh?

[Aleshe] We're having too much fun on endchan to worry too much about this forum I guess, but we'll check in from time to time.

[Ulla] Hello!

[Ashley] We're refugees from tulpa.info

Congratulations and good luck!