tips on forming headmates if you're bad at visualization
id : tips on forming headmates if you're bad at visualization
most tulpamancy or willomancy guides tell you to visualize your headmate, and this is a very useful base for forming them!
however, for a lot of people, including myself, visualizing is very difficult. so i've written up some tips for people who struggle with this very thing!
don't visualize your headmate's form, instead visualize something that appears easily in your head, such as your name, or a color!
associate your headmate with a sound instead of an image
do a sound that's easy for you. i personally used a chair squeaking because it draws attention and i can hear it accurately, but anything works!
associate your headmate with a scent instead of an image
these are all ways to avoid visualizing a form for your headmate.
Remember to keep backups of your favorite tulpa resources!
The internet may remember forever, but times change. The tulpamancy community–for better or worse–is a prime example of this fact. It would be hyperbolic to state that “THE TULPAMANCY COMMUNITY IS DYING” just as much as it would be downright incorrect. The truth, however, is that the community is shifting and information is less centralized than ever. With the loss of several larger Discord communities over the past few years and the general merging of tulpamancy with the wider plural community, I emphasize again the importance of keeping records.
Keep your logs, guides, and other stuff backed up somewhere that can stand the test of time. Recording information in transient online spaces leads to the inevitable inaccessibility or deletion of said information when the space that contains it eventually goes kaput.
If guides are your thing, maintain backups of the ones that are important to you. The community runs on individual efforts, and sooner or later self-hosted resources may not be available. This community survives off of the perpetuation of word-of-mouth, made-with-love resources, and to lose them would be a travesty.
After years of using Reddit, Discord, and Tumblr to maintain the breadth of my plural-related writing I have made the choice to back up everything important to a personal Google Drive. I will also be revising my writings and making them available through a Rentry masterlist (which will hopefully be made available soon). In doing this, I hope to maintain a private drive that can serve as a digital anchor point while also offering an accessible and centralized space to access my writing in its entirety.
In closing: collect the sruff that’s important to you, and keep it somewhere safe. You never know if it’ll get nuked off the face of the internet eventually. This community, like all others, is a transitory one. If my own hypothesis is correct, isolated tulpamancy communities are becoming a thing of the past, merging into wider plural circles and blending concepts together. For the most part, I don’t see this as a bad thing. Nevertheless, it means that tulpamancy-specific resources run the risk of becoming less relevant. It is our job as individuals to save what is valuable to us. Without proof of something existing, it is quickly forgotten. I do not want to lose what does not have to be lost.
🪷 from the created system ask game (it was the one about advice to those interested in creating a headmate/system member, in case the emoji doesn't work)
" 🪷: What would you say to a singlet interested in willomancy/tulpamancy/paromancy/etc.? What would you say if they were a system? "
Ooh, this is a really good question, thanks for asking!! We'll try and give something that isn't the usual "creating a headmate is a serious decision, they're people and need to be treated as equals", etc etc etc stuff
🪷 Singlets: You've probably heard a few times that creating a headmate means you're responsible for treating them as a person and allowing them the same freedoms you have if possible. And it's true, a created headmate is a friend for life with a special, indescribable connection you'll always share. But something I didn't really consider back when I (thought I) was a singlet, is that your lives and interests will flow into each other because you live intertwined.
I have a respect and appreciation for coquette and lolita fashion because of our soulbond Casey when previously I avoided ""girly"" or frilly or extravagant things entirely; I go out more because our tulpa Badeline gets stir crazy faster than the hosts. I know it sounds like a lot right now, and yes some active work does need to be put in for balance to be kept, but the transition will be so natural you barely even notice it when it happens. I remember looking around our room one day and realizing about 40% of it has some influence from someone outside the Prism behing getting it.
Basically, don't forget that when properly nurtured, deciding on created plurality will change your life. It's a significant decision, but in our humble, biased opinion, it is worth it.
🪷 Systems: Hmmm this is a bit trickier and almost depends more on what kind of created headmate you're working with and what you're used to experiencing within your system. I'll try and encompass as many different things as I can think of. In general, based on what we've seen from ourselves and others, created members tend to operate a little differently than those of other origins.
For example, if you're familiar with that half-formed vague new headmate/alter/etc feeling, or the ability to sense your members' presences, those abilities are very similar to the feeling you'll experience while forming a created member such as a tulpa, willomate, etc.
If you're used to intense splitting, it's much more of a gentle and gradual process. "Head pressures" is the tulpamancy term for the headaches that a tulpa can induce during forming, so some pain is common, but in our experience it's much less bad if you have experienced polyconsciousness already.
Created headmates can also be a very influential way to grow skills such as communication, controlled fronting, headspace control, and breaking down dissociative barriers. When we're at our worst fog and unable to hear nearly anyone else at all, very often the only people able to reach front will be our tulpas and soulbonds. I very much credit our skills in communication, headspace control, switching, and more to having started our plural journey in tulpamancy. If you struggle with dissociative barriers there's a significant chance that a created headmate (especially a tulpa, willomate, paromate, etc) will be able to traverse those barriers better than others in the system.
Depending on if the created headmate is sourced and how connected they are to that source, they may take a while longer to form a web of certain opinions, likes, desires, etc than a system member that just pops in, formed in the background, split roughly, etc. Make sure to give them a broader timespan to fully "come together" than your other headmates, even if you do form them slowly.
That reminds me- most tulpamancy guides say a tulpa takes at least three months to a year to fully form, and most soulbonding guides require and intimate understanding of the character which takes time and dedication in of itself. Our experience with our first tulpa as a then-monoconscious pluregg took around six months to be fully communicative. However, after experience with polconscious plurality, we found the process only took a month or two to complete. We believe this is because a lot of tulpamancy is building the essential skills required, and bypassing that makes the process take a lot shorter. This lines up with accounts from other veteran tulpamancers (that aren't otherwise plural) who say that their second or third tulpas took a much shorter time than their first.
🪷 I hope any of this is helpful to people seeing this!!
Time to sharpen your mind's eye! Go grab a pillow! Any pillow! (I know you have one. If you don't, get one. Why do you not have one???)
Your goal is to hold the image of a pillow for at least 30-60 seconds. If you can hold onto the image for that long, you're ready for the next level!
Each level adds another layer of complexity to the visualization. Go as far as you're comfortable doing. If you want to improve your skills, come back and try to take on the higher levels! And no, I cannot reach all the way to the highest levels, but one day I'd like to!
Beginner:
Level 1: What’s the basic shape? Is it a square, a rectangle, or a circle? If it's not a simple 2d shape, you can pick one that's the closest. For example, an "S" shaped pillow can be a circle or oval for now
Level 2: What’s the basic or average color? If you're not sure because it has a busy pattern, get up and step away from your pillow until it's a blur. Whatever color the blur is will be the base or average color.
Intermediate:
Level 3: Now let's make the 2d shape more specific. pillows aren't perfect squares, focus on the dents and imaging someone pushing in or squishing the sides and corners. Don't hesitate to squish your pillow, cut a square piece of paper, or use Play-doh to squish if you want a reference to play with. If you started with a complex shape, like an "S", imagine parts of the circle or oval cut out. You can practice by cutting a circle or oval on a piece of paper, and then cutting out the top and bottom semi circles to make an "S".
Level 4: Time to make it 3d! A common trick is to imagine a "sandwich" of 2d shapes stacked on-top of one another. Like how the rectangular pages of a book leave you with a book that's a rectangular prism.
Advanced:
Level 5: 2 is better than one! Now you should have at least a copy. Even better if it's a different pillow entirely
Level 6: 3 is better than 2! Hey look, now you have enough for a bed- two for heads and one for hugging. Oh and at least one of them has to be different.
Level 7: It's texture time! Is the texture rough, like on a decoration pillow, or is it soft? Is it smooth like a cotton cover or is it raised and ridged like corduroy?
Nerd:
Level 8: What is the material of the pillow case? Usually pillow cases are made of cotton, but they can also be made from a synthetic fabric or even quilting material. There are wool pillows out in the wild. Wool.
Level 9: Let's stuff it! What kind of filling would you expect to be inside of it? Right now, the goal isn't to visualize the stuffing itself, instead it's to better visualize the overall shape and feel of the pillow. For example, if it's stuffed with bamboo fiber, it will be stiffer than one stuffed with synthetic down feathers. Unless you hate your pillow enough to cut it open, I recommend looking up different pillow fillings.
Level 10: Is there a trim, those little weird ruffle things, any significant stitched on patches, or anything glued on like plastic gems? (Which is a crime btw, decoration pillows just hurt my feelings) Those fixings can be a different material too, and there are lots of common styles that you may have seen before.
Impressive:
Level 11: It's time to give your pillow a stress test! How does the pillow deform when you pull on it, squish it, or even rip it? If you put holes in it, what does the filling look like? Or rip off those stupid glued on charms
Level 12: Now let's add more physics and motion. Gravity (or a lack of it), yeet the pillow, punch it, etc. What happens if something falls onto it, like your head when you flop into bed?
Level 13: Let's age up the pillow! What stains, wear, and tear are on it? The hard part is remembering where the asymmetrical pillow damage is when rendering the image. That and finding the motivation to look up how fabrics decompose overtime...
Level 14: You knew this was coming… Gimmie a pile of 5+ pillows. All of them are different. And on at least one of them, someone spilled their drink on it!
God:
Level 15: Describe to me the dimensions of the pillow using measurements
Level 16: What is the texture pattern on the pillow? You may need a magnifying glass for this.
Level 17: What do the parts of stuffing look like? Are they strands, feathers, or pieces?
Level 18: Look up how these pillows are made and then imagine yourself making one
Level 19: What are the positions and directions of each piece of stuffing?
If you made it this far, you definitely got past my skill level awhile ago and I can't comprehend where to go from here. Well done!
Hi!im not sure how much you know about willogenic systems but i was wondering if u have any tips on helping a willomate develop a more?
hey, our partner is a willogenic/paromancy sys. we asked her this question and here’s what she said:
“you know, for us, more than anything what helps is spending time with each other. for me, the host, i try to make conscious efforts to include nev in almost everything. i’m always asking about her thoughts on stuff and trying to get her opinion. i ask her what she’s thinking in the current moment or like ask her to suggest what we should have for a snack or what kind of music we should work on. we also collaborate in the studio a lot, and working together helps us learn more about each other. so yeah, just keeping that dialogue constant and open is what helps us the most.”
we aren’t willogenic ourselves, but we do have this post on building individuality in headmates which might help even a willomate develop more into their own distinct person. here it is:
Discovering identity and individuality as a member of a system
As headmates, it can often be challenging for many of us to understand who w
and as always, if anyone sees this who has any tips or advice on helping a willomate develop more, you are welcome and encouraged to share.
we hope this helps, anon. good luck with developing your willomate into a more well-rounded individual in the future :)
