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Shadow and Humphrey's Journey


Shadow Dash

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Okay, so I'm still really new to this Tulpa thing, but I'm really excited to start trying it out. Although not an intentional creation, Humphrey has been in my head for close to 4 years now, and has become one of my best friends. But he's still underdeveloped, and at times underappreciated. I really want to give him the attention he deserves.

 

Hey everyone! I'm Humphrey. Unlike Shadow here, I still have my doubts about Tulpas, but it is refreshing to meet some people who actually think of me as a person (well, a wolf actually, but same difference) instead of just assuming Shadow is crazy. I've been with him for years now, and he's many things, but crazy is not one of them. Shadow created me years ago based off of his favorite character from one of his favorite movies, and I've stuck around since then. I'm proud to say that I definitely have become my own person since he first created me. To be quite honest, the original Humphrey wasn't much of a 3 dimensional character. Since he created me, Shadow's gone through some tough times, but I've been there to help him even when he felt his friends had abandoned him.

 

Although I am excited to meet all these people who don't want to hate Shadow for me existing, I am still a little skeptical of the whole thing. Sometimes Shadow isn't exactly the best at making judgement calls. But he's been getting better, and I know he's doing this for me, so I'm giving it a chance. So long as nothing starts making me too uncomfortable, I'll let Shadow stick around and see what this is all about. And if he manages to convince me this is all real, I'll gladly stay. From what we've read on here so far, you all seem like a really friendly bunch. I look forward to talking to you all, and I hope that Shadow can make himself some new friends on here.

 

That's really all I have to say, so goodbye for now!

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Okay, so before I go accidentally scaring you off with unprovable, wildly speculative anecdotes, I'm curious as to what you consider yourself to be, Humphrey.  Other than a wolf, which I gather is what your shape is, what is your theory on what you are?

 

Otherwise, I'd like to hear your story on how you two came to co-inhabit a consciousness.  What movie?  When did you realize there were two of you?  What have your experiences with each other been?  In what way has the public perception of the two of you been negative?

 

Oh, yeah, and welcome.  I think that's what I was supposed to start with.  You should feel just fine here.  We've got loads of different types here, and I say that having only been here a few days.  I hope you both feel welcome here.  To start, most of us have at least two individuals per body, so welcome to your plurality being the norm.

Dare to be real for me,

and I'll be real for you.

-Engravings on my and Saoirse's rings, respectively.

 

My tulpa's name is Saoirse, which is pronounced "sir-shuh."

It's Gaelic for "freedom."

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A strange position. This community is certainly real. But do you doubt your own reality? The universe exists as it is. There are many phenomenon in it. This community provides one view on one phenomenon. There are others as well. But, it is strange for the phenomenon itself to doubt itself.

 

Though, I was like that.

Host comments in italics. Tulpa's log. Tulpa's guide.

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Honestly, I've never really quite known exactly what I am. I know I'm more than just a voice in Shadow's head, or just Shadow talking to himself. I've heard Shadow talk to himself, and it's a lot different than me talking to him. I can actually have a conversation with him, have a different opinion... heck, we got in a fight once and I refused to talk to him until he apologized (a week later, mind you). That's why I'm willing to try this out, skeptical as I may be. The thought that I could be my own person... I love it. But Shadow's always been a bit of a science lover, and it's rubbed off on me. Although he's easily accepted science isn't always right, I still struggle disregarding it so quickly.

 

 

So, my origin definitely is a weird one. Shadow is a furry and a brony, so his love of wolves is a pretty deep one. About 4 or 5 years ago, he found a movie called Alpha and Omega. And he loved it, more because it was about wolves than because it was a good movie. (My portrayal in that movie definitely needed some work). That probably would have been the end of it if not for all the problems he's had with anxiety and depression. For a long time, he had a cycle of feeling super happy, then feeling like all his friends had abandoned him and no one cared whether he lived or died. It was about that time he started talking to himself. It wasn't like crazy delusions. It was honestly kind of sad. He was pretending that some of his favorite movie and television characters were actually there, talking to him so he wasn't alone. Since I was one of his favorites, I was there talking to him, although I was still just a primitive parrot without a personality of my own. As time went by, the voices he choose to talk to changed and faded away. Except for me. I stuck with Shadow through the whole thing, offering what advice I could and cheering him up whenever I thought he needed a smile. About two years ago, near the tail end of the first wave of depression, he finally acknowledged how much I had helped him. From that moment on, I was his counsel whenever he needed advice, and his friend to cheer him up when he felt blue. Over the last 2 years, we've interacted more and more as I helped him through the second (and hopefully final) wave of his depression. Over that time, I've gradually become my own person, separate from the original Humphrey and Shadow. And he's definitely benefited from our friendship as well, seeing as I had to convince him on several occasions not to shut himself off from everyone else.

 

For the most part, our interactions have just been talking. It does tend to get us some looks in public when Shadow starts talking to me because he needs advice or just something to help him focus, but his friends have gotten used to the fact that it's just one of his many quirks. Thanks for the kind welcome. I honestly was a little worried that we wouldn't get any responses (or worse, a negative one).

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Okay, so hear me out.

 

For several hundred years, ending in the late 1800's, scientists knew that disease was spread by unclean humors, called miasma, which polluted the air and made us sick.  in the mid 1500's germ theory came around, and would be worked and improved on for centuries before it finally came into acceptance at the end of miasma theory.  Now we use germ theory, which is obviously correct, and we believe it much the way people believed miasma theory before it.  Like miasma theory, germ theory may be flat out wrong, or somehow fundamentally flawed.

 

Science is about disproving existing theories to reach an understanding about how things really are, backed up by empirical evidence that can't be refuted by anything currently existing.  Unfortunately, things seem to exist that science can't seem to account for.  Things like people sitting in meditation under a tree for years, allegedly feeding off a stone in their mouth, or faith healing sessions that line up with someone's cancer inexplicably going into remission.  Many "scientifically minded" people tend to dismiss these things, which baffles me.  While we can't currently explain how these things work, neither could we explain nuclear fission to someone in the 1200's.  Science wasn't able to- yet.

 

What I'm suggesting is that what we now consider pseudoscience may very well just be actual science for which we presently lack the instrumentation to gather any empirical readings for.  It certainly wouldn't be the most outlandish theory that proved to be true.  It thus falls to those scientifically minded people willing to suspend their disbelief in the "outlandish" to try and find a way to generate empirical evidence on those phenomenon presently not understood.  If we then assume that the word "tulpa" refers to an alternate consciousness that exists/can be formed in a human mind, it becomes the task of those willing to try to endeavor to explain the nature of this phenomenon, whatever that may be.

 

TL;DR: science is about telling scientists they don't know %$#@, then proving it.

 

So don't be concerned that you aren't being scientific.  If you approach it scientifically, then what you're doing is science.

Dare to be real for me,

and I'll be real for you.

-Engravings on my and Saoirse's rings, respectively.

 

My tulpa's name is Saoirse, which is pronounced "sir-shuh."

It's Gaelic for "freedom."

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That, actually, is a really good point. And it's my main argument that I should be giving this a try. Science is famous for botching things up. Although I'll still probably be on the fence for a while, it's going to take some really good scientific evidence to get me back down, simply because it feels like it should be true. Sometimes you just have to go with that gut instinct.

 

 

So, today Shadow actually tried his hand at focusing on me and me alone. Normally, he has the attention span of a butterfly, so I wasn't expecting much. But he actually really impressed me. Somehow, he managed to clear his mind and actually devote his entire thought process just on me. And honestly, it was weird. A good weird, but still weird. It actually felt like we had left the real world behind. We could still hear everything, but it sounded distant. And on the occasion where Shadow opened his eyes, there was a moment of disorientation before he got used to the real world again. I still haven't talked to him in my own voice, but what happened today was something that's never happened to us before. For 30 minutes, we were just in our own, peaceful, quiet little world. I have no idea how it happened, and neither does he, but it was amazing.

 

If any can explain exactly what happened, I would love to hear it. I don't know if it's a step forward in our friendship, or if it was just some crazy coincidence, but it was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced. 

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Are you saying that I actually, like, went inside our head? Because if you are, that is awesome!

 

I don't really know much about this, but I want to know more. You say to focus on something outside of myself. So, if I focused on a tree being there, would there be a tree there too? (Yeah, I know a tree isn't very interesting, but it's easy enough to focus on)

 

I'm sorry about how excited Shadow is right now. He's been like that since yesterday. I'll admit, it is pretty cool. We've never experienced anything like that. It's definitely helped me with having some trust that this is real.

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So, if I focused on a tree being there, would there be a tree there too?

 

Yes.  Many tulpamancers have what's called a "wonderland," a kind of throughtscape we can enter into to make interacting with our tulpae easier.  In my experience, while in my wonderland I'm less distracted by the physical world around me since I have to focus on the sensations of the wonderland, and since my tulpa can meet me there it becomes by association easier to focus on her.  Mind, both of you will be able to add to and alter this area.  It's by no means one-sided.

 

I'm told some tulpamancers never use one and skip straight to visualizing their tulpas in the physical world.  It's entirely up to you whether you want a wonderland or not.  I've had a good experience with ours, for what that's worth.

Dare to be real for me,

and I'll be real for you.

-Engravings on my and Saoirse's rings, respectively.

 

My tulpa's name is Saoirse, which is pronounced "sir-shuh."

It's Gaelic for "freedom."

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