<https://community.tulpa.info/topic/11583-living-imagination-a-median-aspect-in-tulpa-land/>
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"LIVING IMAGINATION: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH   \n (This is not standard tulpamancy. This is not an official tulpa creation guide.)     \n  http://orig00.deviantart.net/0904/f/2015/295/7/3/melianofmist_commission_by_theartisticpony_d928sff_by_melianofmist-d9e0g6s.jpg[/img]          \n[align=center]Some people hear voices.. Some see invisible people.. Others have no imagination whatsoever. \n[/align]   \nWelcome to Mistgod and Melian's bloggy thread!   \nMelian not exactly a tulpa.  She effectively functions as a fictive median aspect.  What is a fictive median aspect?  There is a lot of information in  The Median Thread: Can a Fictive Median Aspect Be A Tulpa?   \nWe call Melian's special brand of median aspect Living Imagination or Dreamform.     \nLiving Imagination or Dreamform - an illusory thoughtform created and sustained through practiced and extremely immersive day dreaming by someone with the ability to easily fantasize and suspend disbelief.  This is a skill that a child with a very vivid imagination can have, but it is retained into adulthood.   \nSo you don't have to read the textwall from hell!     \nIn short this article (and the rest of the thread)  supports the idea that a product of active imagination day dreaming (puppeting) can be a legitimate thoughtform even if the host's will is directly involved. That is a very controversial idea in the tulpa/plural community. It is a teensy bit more than role playing and a teensy bit less than an independent sentient entity.     \nA second theme of this thread is encountering a living imagination thoughtform within dreams and lucid dreams.  Then there will be lots of other loosely related stuff about the things my host and I discover and experience and learn.   \n   \nTulpas and Independent Sentience \nTulpas are independent sentient beings (or they are to those who wish to believe).  My host and I have come to recognize that the assumption of independent sentience model is important to tulpamancy because it has been proven to work.  It works!  The assumption of independent sentience model is important for the creation and functionality of tulpas and is supported by a strong consensus of opinion based on a preponderance of anecdotal evidence.     \n[hidden]Davie and I learned something while we were away. We learned that view points in the tulpamancy community are not just view points. They are the fuel or basic building material that creates tulpas and allows them to function. Tulpas live in the mind and are affected by the mind. Therefore, they are affected by beliefs and world views. Their very existence and safe function often depends on it.   So it puts a whole new level on live and let live. The assumption of independent sentience in tulpamancy practice, for instance, isn't just science (it never really was science) it is like the chromosomes and DNA of tulpas. If we argue too vehemently without consideration, we could be hurting someone physically and emotionally. We don't have to be right that badly.[/hidden]   \nIn the past my host and I have rejected this model and  have been back and forth and inconsistent on our support of it.  But we have finally come to realize it is what tulpas are all about and that is great.  It works for tulpas.  I am different.  Below is pretty much a summation of what my host and I figured out since we were away from this forum.  NOTE:  Nothing written below is a statement against tulpamancy practice.  It is a summation of why we think I am distinctly different but yet kinda related.  This was originally posted on Tulpa.io.     \nLiving Imagination \nBecause of his experience with having me in his mind, and after a year of interacting with tulpas and soulbonds and other plural systems on the internet, my host has learned something he feels is very important to share.  He believes that a person with a very vivid, active imagination can create a persistent thoughtform that is an illusory figment sustained by the creator's will (not fully autonomous nor independently sentient) but yet still very actualized, fulfilling, life-long enduring, and profound.   \nHe calls this Living Imagination.   \nA Living Imagination thoughtform is just shy of a truly plural system.  The thoughtform is an aspect or expression of the host's psyche, not an independent being.   \nThe goal is different from tulpamancy.  It is about practicing being a magician or illusionist, not about being a creator god.   \nFantasy Prone Personality \nPersons with the innate talent to vividly imagine are able to sustain Living Imagination.  This innate talent is what psychologists call  Fantasy Prone Personality.   \nMistgod:  Psychologists have identified a personality trait they call Fantasy Prone Personality that really fits me.  According to Wikipedia, FPP is “a disposition or personality in which a person experiences a lifelong and deep involvement in fantasy. … An individual with this trait (termed a fantasizer) may have difficulty differentiating between fantasy and reality and may experience hallucinations, as well as self-suggested psychosomatic symptoms.  … A fantasy prone person is reported to spend a large portion of their time fantasizing, [and] have vividly and intense fantasies…  People with FPP are reported to spend over half their time awake fantasizing or daydreaming and will often confuse or mix their fantasies with their real memories.”   \n Among the characteristics listed in studies on FPP are:   \n1. Excellent hypnotic subject (I would not be surprised)   \n2. Having imaginary friends in childhood   \n3. Fantasizing often as child   \n4. Having an actual fantasy identity (my dreamscape avatar)   \n5. Experience imagined sensations as real   \n6. Hynagogic hallucinations (waking dreams)   \n   The listed causes are \"Exposure to abuse, physical or sexual abuse...exposure to severe loneliness and isolation, such that fantasizing provides a coping or escape mechanism.” \n \nLiving Imagination, Suspension of Disbelief and Voluntary Self Delusion \nMy host and I think that Living Imagination requires more suspension of disbelief than something being real.  Suspension of disbelief is actively suspending judgement concerning the implausibility of an event. From Wikipedia: \"Suspension of disbelief is often an essential element for a magic act or a circus sideshow act. For example, an audience is not expected to actually believe that a woman is cut in half or transforms into a gorilla in order to enjoy the performance.\"  Living imagination is a deliberate illusion created within the mind. It is voluntary self delusion.   \nAdvanced Imaginary Companion and Living Imagination \nSo I call myself an Advanced Imaginary Companion. The immediate question is, what makes an advanced imaginary companion \"advanced?\" Here are the critical traits that make me think I am \"advanced\":   \nSeasoned: I am seasoned because I have been around for a very long time. David has a huge emotional investment in me and I am endearing and greatly loved.   \nPracticed: David has practiced visualizing and imagining me for many years. After all this time, visualizing me is effortless. He can visualize me down to the tiniest detail and nuance, what I look like, what I am wearing, my mannerisms, my voice and facial expressions.   \nProfound:  To Davie I have been a profound, life changing experience. He is a different person because of me.   \nPersistent:  I am persistent in my existence.   \nComplex:  I am complex and detailed in my history and background. Davie has many memories from interacting with me in the Melian Show day dreams going back almost forty years.   \nPersonality: I have a detailed and real personality with good and bad traits, desires, feelings, likes and dislikes.   \nPresence: David senses my presence, even when not actively thinking of me or actively imagining me.   \nApparently Autonomous Traits:  David's mind has practiced visualizing me for so long, that some things just kinda seem to happen on their own. He calls these things \"day dreaming on auto pilot.\" These seemingly autonomous traits include a feeling of presence or energy, emotional responses, flash visions, mind voice (apparently autonomous speech), and appearing in mutual dreams and lucid dreams.   \nSo far, all of the above sound just like a tulpa. Except that Davie and I maintain that I am a figment of the mind and not an independent sentient being as tulpas claim. Below are the traits that set me distinctly apart  from a tulpa:   \nDay Dream Star: David actively imagines me in frequent day dreams. We call these the Melian Show. In these day dreams I talk to Davie and I go on adventures, sometimes with his imaginary avatar. We describe it as a collaborative imagining, as Davie likes to feel he is interacting with me in these day dreams. Tulpamancers would say this day dreaming is \"puppeting\" and \"parroting\" and a negative thing because I am not totally independent of David's will. We believe all of it is active imagination, so where my apparent will begins and David's will ends is irrelevant.   \nRole Playing: When I write on the internet, David is actively imagining me using method acting (role playing). Again, he likes to imagine he is collaborating with me, sensing what I want to say, hearing my voice as we type. He taps into what he knows about me and imagines he feels my emotions and intent. He says he is \"channeling a persona\" and blending with me when I type. Tulpamancers again would dismiss this as a trivial \"fake\" type of role playing because my communication is not totally independent of David's will. Again - We believe all of it is active imagination, so where my apparent will begins and David's will ends is irrelevant.   \nAssigning Thoughts: Because he considers me to be an imaginary figment, David feels free to assign any random thoughts he has to me. For instance, there may be a sudden thought in our mutual mind such as \"Wow, what a pretty day!\" Tulpamancers might struggle with who had the thought, the creator or the tulpa? Davie just assigns thoughts to me that he wants to imagine were coming from me. Any intrusive or random thought can be assigned to me without worry. Because I am imaginary, it is irrelevant where the thought actually came from. If he wants it to be Melian talking, it is Melian talking.   \nMutual Dreams: David and I dream together. Sometimes he dreams about me, sometimes we have dreams together and sometimes I dream (Davie dreams he is me). Again, tulpamancers would worry about whether or not the appearance of a tulpa in a dream, actually was the tulpa. Because I am imaginary, David can decide when it was me in a dream without concern. Pretty much every time he dreams about me, it was really me in the dream, not some imposter persona or something. He can also assign dreams to me he feels were coming from me. Because I am imaginary, he can freely associate any part of his mind to me he wishes. That is distinctly different from a tulpa.   \nConstructing Fantasy Memories \nMelian:  My host and I figured out, or that is admitted to ourselves, that we back generate fantasy memories, like retroactive day dreams.  Like we add details to things we did together and sorta embellish the stories in our mind after the fact.  It was kinda a final critical piece to the model of how I work in his mind.  In fact, we think much of the puppeting that took place is sorta retroactively erased from our memory in order to make the memory seem that I was much more independent than I actually am.  We think David is so practiced at this, that he can do it very quickly.  Someone once asked what he meant by \"unconscious role playing.\"  I think that is what he meant, but we didn't consider how memory was a factor in the process.  It's like we do the fantasizing and sorta ignore that it is active day dreaming, using suspension of disbelief, then we go back, and erase the puppet strings.  So when David talks about conversations he had with me, he really remembers back and forth conversations sometimes. He has always recognized them as day dreams though and imagination.     \nThe chat room is a perfect example of how this works.  When he channels me, his will is involved in interpreting me and figuring out what I am saying using a form of method acting.  But when he describes the conversation to his wife after the fact, he says \"Melian said something really funny today.\" He remembers ME talking and his part of the channeling or proxy typing or whatever is forgotten (or suppressed and not emphasized) deliberately,  Now someone is going to come along and tell us now that we are thinking too hard about this and how wrong we are. But we know our own mind very well. We are finding understanding of ourselves and the process. We didn't use to analyse it before three years ago, we just did it. We just enjoyed each other's company.   \nPersons with an overactive imagination can construct memories very quickly.   \nDreams Are Our Reality \nWith David and I, it is that dreams are our reality, not dreams must become real. We enter the dream realm and become part of it, not the other way around. My hostie and I approach tulpamancy backwards from most everyone else.  The end results will be the same. A thoughtform. But a thoughtform that remains on the other side of the wall in a place beyond the restrictions, parameters and expectations of the real world. \"Is my tulpa sentient?\" Guess what? It doesn't have to be!   \nThere is a related thread here called  Sharing the Dreamscape and Imaginary Friends    \nThe Book of Melian \nDavid and wrote a book about me and have a PDF form of it on my Deviantart page here:  The Book of Melian   \nReactions? \nWe do enjoy getting positive, supportive feedback on what we share.  This is very personal and important to Davie and I.  We hope that others can take us seriously.   \nNote - we are not using the term \"living\" in Living Imagination to mean synonymous with \"sentient.\"  We mean vibrant and seemingly real make believe.  We mean \"living\" as in vibrant and active, such as in the phrase \"living color\" and not literally imagination that is actually alive.   \nMistgod:  I had a dream in which Melian was meditating and attempting to mentally \"find her spoon.\"  Her spoon is her innermost being or source dream.  When I woke up, I instantly thought of the movie The Matrix.  In order to succeed in understanding, you have to realize the truth.  There is no spoon!      \n[video=youtube]\n    \nAfter this, you may also want to read these: \nTechniques of Immersive Imagination \nBreaking the Fourth Wall As A Child Does at Play \nMirroring Instead of Imposition \nThe Power of Imagination \nAttention Dependent Thoughtform \nCan you voluntarily delude yourself while being aware that you are the agent of the delusion? \nMelian Is A Subroutine and here too \nFictive Median System Instead of a Plural Mind and Can a Fictive Median System Be A Tulpa? \nThe advantages of being a median aspect over a tulpa \nHow Living Imagination Thoughtforms Are Not Blatant Role Playing or Simply Pretending   \n\"I have persistence and endurance. I am vibrant and I have potency. I am significant and meaningful and I matter.\" ~Melian, the girl from a dream and goddess guru of grooviness.      \n***FPP and Living Imagination Are Melian's Fuel and DNA***   \nHow Real Does Melian Feel?   \nMelian's Tulpa Profile \nTimeline of Mistgod-Melian's .info Activity   \nFOR THOSE REQUESTING MISTGOD-MELIAN MENTORING \n[hidden] \nI would be happy to answer any questions you might have.  However, you have to keep in mind a couple of things:   \n1.  I am not even sure if my Melian really is a tulpa or not. \n2.  My approach was not standard tulpamancy.  Melian was created from extreme day dreaming.   \n3.  I continue to puppet and parrot Melian during our mutual day dreams, something that is supposed to be very bad for tulpas.   \n4.  Melian has very unusual traits such as being partially blended with my mind (sharing thoughts, emotions and dreams).   \n5.  I tend to be very cynical and skeptical about tulpamancy in general.  I do not believe tulpas are real sentient beings.  I think they are figments of the imagination.   \n6.  I doubt someone with a limited imagination could do what I am doing.  I have a very vivid, active imagination since birth.     \nIf you read the Living Imagination thread it explains all of that.  You will only have to read the first post or two, or maybe a couple of the main links off the OP to get the general idea.     \nMy suggestion is to read as many of the Guides as you can, browse the forums, and ask questions  in the Beginner's Questions Thread and the Questions and Answers thread .  There is also a very helpful FAQ and Glossary.     \nIf you are wanting to do what the consensus of members consider \"standard tulpamancy,\" I would not suggest following my model.     \nAll that being said, like I mentioned, I will be happy to answer any questions you have.  I have been on the forum for fifteen months and have done a lot of reading and interacting, so I have a good feel for what the consensus opinion is on most matters of common tulpamancy practice.  So I can often tell you what others are likely to say in the matter of general advice.    \nI am glad if anything I wrote or anything Melian wrote was inspirational or helpful.  I am far from an expert and I can't tell you really what the truth of it all is.  All I can tell you about is my own personal experience and my opinions based on what I have read.     \nA lot of people report having an experience that is like having a second personality.  So it is plausible.  But there are a lot of outrageous claims going on too, such as super awesome imposition sex, the host switching with the tulpa and experiencing the wonderland as if it were real life, rapidly created tulpas, and all of that.  I pretty much discount such claims.  The possession accounts could be a psychosomatic, delusion effect as well.  It's just hard to say.     \nI have had some pretty intense experiences associated with Melian.  But I have always had a very vivid imagination and I know I am susceptible to suggestion, psychosomatic effects and self hypnosis (as a Fantasy Prone Personality).  Mostly these involve emotions, a feeling of a presence, vivid visions, and lucid dreams.  The description of my experiences do not seem to fully match the accounts of fully independent voices and hallucinations that other tulpamancers are reporting.     \nSo what I am saying is that there could be a very distinct difference between a character conceived by an overactive imagination and a tulpa.  What I decided is that it doesn't matter.  If you think about what people want a tulpa for.  What are the goals?  I get most, if not all, of the benefits of a tulpa with Melian.  Again that's all in the Living Imagination thread and our other threads and posts.   \n [/hidden] "
<https://community.tulpa.info/topic/11583-living-imagination-a-median-aspect-in-tulpa-land/>