Tulpa.io

by Joshua

Meditation for Those Seeking to Dissociate

This guide should be used as a reference for those who want a thought-out look into meditation for dissociation and dissociation's uses in tulpa things. I have been meditating daily since the summer of 2010, and I have found myself able to dissociate from my body consistently and quickly at this point. I have been able to dissociate semi-reliably since the fall of 2013, and I started work on my first tulpa in January of 2014. I was first successfully switched with my second tulpa, Mikasa, in May of 2014. I fully realize that this is not a realistic time period for someone to accomplish this, and I have been stumped by it ever since it happened. The most plausible explanation that I can muster up is that because I had regular experience with dissociation it was easier for me to get out of the way and work with my tulpa to let her switch. But enough about me.

Assuming that you have little to no experience with repeated meditation, then ideally you would start with thirty-minute sessions once or twice a day. Thirty minutes is not specific, just something I chose due to it being a good not-too-short-not-too-long length. If it's too long, shorten it, and vice versa. If you decide to do more than one a day, I recommend waiting a few hours in between them to act as a bit of a palette cleanser. From what I have seen in advising others, meditating for too long at once will often be detrimental to long-term progress. As results will most likely take months at a time to achieve, longer meditation sessions with little to no change in between could frustrate and discourage. Shorter sessions counteract that. Another thing to keep in mind is the level of stimulus in your surroundings. Quiet places are better for meditation, etc. 

Before reaching dissociation, you will be looking to reach a state of trance-like quiet within your mind. This is achieved by sitting in your chosen meditation position and allowing your mind to run out of thoughts. I know that many types of meditation will have you focus on your breathing, but I want you to instead simply acknowledge whatever thoughts float by in your mind. This should be done passively, not actively, and what I mean by that is that you should not hear your inner monologue acknowledge the thoughts. This leads to more thoughts. What you will be hoping to eventually achieve is a state of non-thought. Easier said than done, of course, but as you practice over the course of weeks and months you will find that near the end of your thirty minutes you will have a state of quiet. Oftentimes, the realization that you are in this state will jolt you out of it, which can be frustrating, but continue to meditate daily and this state will increase in length, come around earlier in the session, and become more stable. This is your first milestone.

Once you can reach this state reliably, you will want to practice it daily if you're not already doing so. There will come a time after this where you dissociate for the first time. This is your second milestone. When it comes to how long this transition may take, I cannot give you a solid answer. I can say that it took me around a year and a half to move from the first “zen” state to my first dissociative experience. I wish I could be more specific on this step, as it is of course one of the pivotal moments sought after by those wanting to switch. Similarly to when first reaching the “zen” state, early dissociative experiences will most likely shock you out of them. It takes repeated practice to be able to reach and maintain dissociation, and you will find it a more stable and lengthened state as you continue to meditate.

I think it's important to lay out what dissociation is for people reading this and wondering about it. Dissociation is the separation of the consciousness from external stimulus. For me, it is characterized by the inability to hear things first and foremost, as well as not being innately aware of my eyes being closed. What I mean by this is that it does not feel like my eyes are closed, but I cannot see until I actively go and try to open them. The reason I put lack of hearing as the primary trait is that it will most likely be the most jarring thing for someone first experiencing dissociation. I know it was for me, at least. There are other things, like not feeling your tongue and losing the awareness of little itches and the like on your arms and legs, but those were less obvious to me at first. So, when meditating with the goal of dissociation in mind, try and compare your experiences to these traits to see if you are on the right track.

The third milestone of progress in this guide would be the ability to think while dissociated. This may be something you had not considered, but in my personal experience, it was a major hurdle to being able to visualize things while dissociated and later on entering the wonderland and interacting with my tulpas. I have very little in the way of advice for how to overcome this other than daily meditation practice. There was nothing specific that I did in 2013 as I dissociated to reach the level of conscious thought while dissociated. It simply occurred around two months after my first dissociative experience in September of 2013. If you are following the advice in this guide, however, I believe it will occur for you sometime relatively soon after reaching reliable dissociation.

To recap: 1. Practice meditation by acknowledging thoughts rather than focusing on breathing. 2. Keep doing this until you start to consistently run out of thoughts. 3. Keep going until you start to consistently dissociate. 4. Keep going until you start to be able to think while dissociated. 5. Meditate daily to keep and polish your ability.

Breaking Dissociation

In every experience of dissociation I've had, I have ended the session by consciously focusing on opening my eyes. The result is me opening my eyes in real life, back in my body. I do not believe it is possible to get “stuck” if you are just using meditation to dissociate. I don't do drugs, so I can't speak for a scenario mixing the two, and because of this I recommend not using drugs while dissociating. The only exception to this I've come across is alcohol. I have dissociated while drunk and been completely fine when coming back. Granted, I had been dissociating regularly for about a year at the time and felt fairly capable.

Using Dissociation While Forcing

I'll keep the personal introspection to a minimum. “Passive forcing” is relatively easy, and, for me, it feels like it's fairly cut and dry with regard to when it is and isn't occurring. If you are aware of your tulpa being around or are thinking of them, then passive forcing is arguably happening. If you're not, then passive forcing probably isn't happening. However, “active forcing” seems a bit harder to maintain a sense of boundary. Thinking solely about your tulpa is active forcing, however, and this is coming from my experience with trying to force while not dissociating, it's difficult to active force for long periods of time (over forty-five minutes or so).

I bypassed this issue through dissociation, and from here on out I'm going to assume you've reached a point where you can regularly dissocicate, too. It's extremely simple to active force using dissociation. Just dissociate, imagine your tulpa, and interact with them. If you're early on in the tulpa creation stage, use this time to talk to the tulpa, add in traits if you're doing that sort of thing, or work on their form with them. If you're later on, go nuts. Create a wonderland together, explore a wonderland, hang out, try and visualize a game of chess with them, etc. 

There are benefits to using dissociation for forcing. Firstly, if you have dissociation under your command, you have a much easier time staying in the moment while forcing. Secondly, things that happen while dissociated are incredibly vivid in comparison to normal active forcing. This lack of a need to keep your focus on simply maintaining the session is an understated blessing because it allows you to more fully be in the moment with your tulpa, something I feel will definitely enhance the experience as well as the tulpa's development.

Using Dissociation for Switching

There are two sides to switching, and my approach uses dissociation and minor symbolism. Keep in mind that this symbolism is personal to me, and while I suggest you try it to see if this example works for you, feel free to use whatever helps you personally. Instead of a recap, I'm going to list the steps and then provide written elaboration afterwards.

1. Dissociate. 2a. Visualize a door to your wonderland. 2b. Have your tulpa visualize a door to your body. 3ab. Step through the respective doors.

Dissociation should be self explanatory at this point. Dissociate to a point where you are conscious and in a void. Do not enter the wonderland or interact with your tulpa at this point. Visualize a door that will lead to your wonderland. It doesn't have to be detailed or fancy, just any sort of door will do. Prior to dissociating, tell your tulpa to visualize a door that once passed through will drop them off in control of the body. Then, step through the door into your wonderland. Having tried to time which one of us walks through the door first, I can only reasonably say that if you walk through the door, your tulpa will walk through their door. It doesn't matter if one of you walks through slightly earlier than the other, since during this step, it's the action itself that has significance.

Once you've done this, you will either find yourself in your wonderland with your tulpa, indicating you've failed to switch, which is fine as it takes practice, or you will find yourself in your wonderland without your tulpa, indicating they've entered the body. If you consider these two outcomes to be the only ones, I can all but guarantee they will be, and you will not have to deal with any “tulpa is gone but no one is in the body” nonissues. However, if for some reason this scenario does occur, just break dissociation. Your tulpa will be fine.

How to know when you've switched properly? Using dissociation the way I've outlined in this guide, you'll know once you break dissociation and return to the body. Are things different? Are you standing now? Is your tulpa excited about having controlled the body? These are fairly common signs that you've switched. 

Progressing Past Simple Switching

Some things to work on after you reach proficiency in switching:

Switching, then breaking dissociation without regaining control of the body (I call this “checking the front,” but the terminology isn't that important in my opinion).

*Tip: The crux of the issue lies in your tulpa maintaining control, so if you can't manage to break dissociation without also regaining control of the body, your tulpa needs more practice and familiarity with holding control of the body.

Swapping the tulpa who is in control with another while you maintain dissociation.

*Tip: This one should be approached from the angle of “replacing tulpa walks through door into wonderland while exiting tulpa walks through door into body.”