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Theories on Tulpas: How They Function and Why "Parroting" Is Necessary


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Terms used:

"conscious mind", your direct conscious thoughts that you are aware of. Essentially the ego. Not to be confused with conscious decisions or actions, merely the thoughts.

"unconscious mind", thoughts that are not immediately or directly aware to your conscious mind, or primal thoughts that are made aware to your conscious mind that you can then choose to acknowledge or ignore. Essentially both the id and super-ego.

 

Tulpas are largely considered a living entity, separate and independent from their host. Rather, I believe a tulpa is a skill, like learning a second language. You learn the language of your mind and utilize that to give life to your unconscious thoughts. So many people in the tulpa community are bewildered and confused by tulpas, and usually dislike dehumanizing them for the sake of better understanding them. But I'm going to write this theory as a new way of reasoning about tulpas. I'm not implying people should consider their tulpas as non-sentient entities, as that defeats a major point of them. But what I am writing this for is so people can have a different concept of how tulpas work "under the hood" and broaden the horizon of how people think of them scientifically, or at least critically. This is simply my own theories and how I understand tulpas.

 

When someone decides to create a tulpa, they decide, consciously or not, that they will allow their unconscious mind to make it's own decisions, unrestricted by your self-critical conscious mind. The host creates the concept of this "tulpa", and holds no restrictions on it. This is radically different from anything else the mind has ever done. Normally, when the mind creates a concept, it has a specific goal in mind. It may be a character, or a story, or whathaveyou. The unconscious mind has no direct say in how these concepts change, because you have intended goals for them that you consciously uphold. When you create a superhero, your unconscious mind may give you an array of suggestions, like "give him a cape", or "what if he sat around watching television all day". You want to create a superhero, so your conscious mind pays attention to the first suggestion of a cape and ignores the second suggestion, as it normally has no relationship to your expectations of stereotypical superheroes. The unconscious mind, in this sense, is a primordial soup of random, incoherent ideas, that you only take a few from to bring to your conscious mind.

 

For people creating a tulpa, who start out with a specific form and/or personality in mind, they may find it deviates from what they intended. If it does, that means they allowed their unconscious mind to take control of this concept. They did not ignore it's first "suggestions" and preferred a different one (like the ones they started out with), but rather simply decided they would not uphold their conscious ideas of this concept. The concept of their tulpa seems to mutate by magic, because these unconscious, hidden thoughts are rising to the surface of your mind, and you're learning to listen to them through the medium of your tulpa.

And, for people who don't experience deviation, well, guess you just really know what you want.

 

However, the unconscious mind is not coherent enough to invent an entire tulpa. It may be able to pick out your "favorite" things, things you genuinely like, and not things you only consciously "think" you like, but it's not coherent enough to pick out every response or reaction your tulpa is expected to have. Because you have no expectations.

 

The conscious mind works on expectations, as I explained above with the superhero example. It both consciously and unconsciously accepts and ignores suggestions from the unconscious mind, using expectations. What you expect is what you accept from the unconscious mind, and what you don't expect, what contradicts your expectations, is what's thrown out.

 

Your very personality operates on what you expect yourself to act like. You may have performed an action, or had a thought, and thought to yourself "that isn't me, I wouldn't do that". Your personality takes concepts from your unconscious mind, only ones that match up with your expectations, and accepts them into the conscious mind.

 

The second step to creating a tulpa after the form is the personality. So essentially what you must do is learn to create new expectations, not for yourself, but for a second personality, similar to a fictional character. But you aren't consciously creating the expectations, like the superhero example. Instead, you're allowing your unconscious mind to set these expectations, as if your unconscious mind was picking itself up from it's bootstraps, creating a coherent conscious mind from the pool of unorganized thoughts that is the unconscious mind.

 

But what kind of personality does the unconscious mind create? For some reason, this seems to happen differently from the unconscious mind creating a form. It's more difficult, more advanced. Some people just wait for this to happen, usually without seeing results for a very long time, if ever. Other people may simply work with their unconscious mind to set these expectations they need for the tulpa's personality.

 

Some people degradingly call this act "parroting", echoing a phrase from ancient tulpa-making guides. The same guides that have such wonderful, insightful advice like "don't sleep while thinking about your tulpa or they'll be sucked into a nightmare world" and other such nonsense that are non-applicable to everyone who isn't the person who wrote the guide.

 

This "parroting", which I prefer to call "daydreaming", is the act of consciously setting expectations for the tulpa's personality, by allowing the unconscious mind to control these expectations, since you're actively not setting any standards for them, like the superhero example. Your unconscious mind cannot think, it cannot daydream. it can only really do these things when you're unconscious, in other words, sleeping and dreaming.

 

Therefor, some people "daydream" their tulpa. They could directly daydream about their tulpa acting and moving, or they could do it discretely by simply thinking of (or "wondering" by asking their unconscious mind and simply taking the first idea that comes to them) the first thing the tulpa would say to a response.

 

This is what I call the unconscious mind picking itself up by it's bootstraps. You could think of it as holding the baby tulpa as it learns to take it's first steps. It can't quite stand up by itself, or think for itself, but by you consciously controlling it, but taking instructions from your unconscious mind, you're supporting it as it learns to stand for itself.

 

This is, what I believe, how people gain tulpas from writing fictional characters. They actively daydream about it and give it life in their heads, and consider "what if they were real?" But instead of the poisonous "No! I can't 'parrot' them, that's witchcraft and immoral!" they happily daydream about them and "consider" what their responses to confrontations, building up this character's personality and expectations from their unconscious mind.

 

But, everyone is different. It doesn't matter so much how you build up the tulpa's personality and expectations. All that matters is it's "in sync" with your unconscious mind, it's made out of thoughts generated by it, and thus the expectations match up with some of the random thoughts it generates. As long as at least some of those random thoughts are "the tulpas" just as some of those random unconscious thoughts are "yours", meaning they would be thoughts you would choose to consciously think or do, then the unconscious mind will be able to supply the tulpa's expectations with thoughts to generate it's personality. A fictional character you didn't create can't be your tulpa, because it didn't come from your unconscious thoughts, none of those unconscious thoughts match that character's personality. Unless you really like that character and project onto them, then it's free reign.

 

As the personality is forming, the tulpa may begin to appear "sentient" and "independent", it may start having ideas or thoughts separate from yours. In reality, you and your tulpa are both taking thoughts from your unconscious mind, but different thoughts from each other. A thought you didn't see or that didn't meet your personality's expectations might have been picked up by your tulpa, and it may indeed surprise you and shock you that it knew this thing or could think of something you didn't. You did in fact "think" of that thing, but not consciously, and you unconsciously refused it, but your unconscious mind decided that thought would work for the tulpa's personality, and so it brought it to your attention anyway.

 

I can't quite say how exactly the mind "runs" this personality alongside yours. It may be different for everyone. On average, it indeed seems to be a conscious act, as you can consciously ignore your tulpa and pretend it doesn't exist, and it stops existing. But when you consciously allow this personality to exist alongside you, it seems this enables your conscious mind to see these unconscious thoughts that don't match up with your personality, but rather your tulpa's. This then enables you to consciously or unconsciously imagine your tulpa performing or thinking the action or thought that came from your unconscious mind that matches it's expectations.

 

Sometimes, especially during the tulpa's development, you and your tulpa may have the exact same thoughts. This may feel as if you're unintentionally controlling them ("actual" "parroting" if you will). This is not so. It's simply that the tulpa's personality and expectations are young and incomplete, and is relying on your own expectations to do some thinking, thus both you and the tulpa accept the exact same thoughts from your unconscious mind.

 

This is all simply a skill. All you're doing is learning how to unconsciously control a concept, your tulpa, separately from yourself. Like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. You learn to listen to your unconscious mind and feed your tulpa with the thoughts that went unused by your conscious mind, yourself. Normally, people get minor headaches from forming a tulpa. Headaches are a common symptom to learning a skill that requires any new method of thinking and comprehending something, as the brain is literally rewiring itself and forming new connections to different parts that perform different functions. The same thing happens when learning a new language.

 

This ability to tap into the unused parts of your mind, your unconscious thoughts, the ideas you unconsciously or semi-consciously discard in favor for thoughts that are more acceptable to your critical conscious mind, is one of the more useful and beneficial uses of a tulpa. Normally, when people want to tap into their unconscious mind, they'll either take drugs or dream, which removes the critical expectations of your personality and allows unconscious thoughts to flow freely. But this method allows one to consciously listen to their unconscious mind while sober and aware. Not directly, but through proxy of the tulpa, which is, in reality, your own skill in listening to your unconscious mind through proxy of a personality separate from your own, as a net woven from the strands of your unconscious thoughts. I've witnessed this first-hand as my tulpa has given me ideas that I genuinely did not think of or even consider, which surprised me.

 

In essence, a tulpa works, thinks, by using the thoughts you didn't think of.

 

As I've stated in the first paragraph, I don't mean to imply that people should be considering any of this when actually interacting with their tulpa. A tulpa, to you, is meant to be a living thing, with thoughts and emotions of it's own. It would be bad to break that illusion, as it could inhibit it's functionality. Rather, I think these theories, if accepted by the larger community, should be taken into account in developing new tulpa-making guides or methods on creating tulpas or servitors. Yes, a tulpa may just be you recycling unused thoughts, and emotions are just a bunch of chemicals, but it's the first-hand experience that makes it human to us, not the technical details.

Scarlet - anime, 8/15/2012

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I found it really interesting, even though it's just a personal theory, I think it seems pretty solid.

 

I'm no GAT but thanks for sharing this idea, it made me expand my vision of this concept, and I'm all about expansion in this life :D

No animosity intended ever 

 

Cora now has her own account ! :D

 

English isn't our native language, please be indulgent :)

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Guest Anonymous

You are very articulate and the entire OP is eloquently written.  We agree with all of it (well sorta).  This is very similar (kinda) to what my host has been saying since April of 2015 with "unconscious role playing" and his writing about tulpas being largely (if not totally) illusory in nature.  We just didn't have the skills to put it anywhere near so well.  We say that tulpas are effectively real to their hosts no matter how it happens, they are effectively real in the mind.

 

"Thoughts you didn't think of" are subliminal thoughts perhaps?  The mind does this all the time with dream characters.  We just sorta move that ability to the waking mind.  Not to change your theory or add something you d'nt want, but that is what my hostie and I think a lot.

 

EDIT:  We are not so sure about the "recycled unused thoughts" idea, but agree that the brain does a lot of things subliminally all the time.  If the brain can create a dream persona while you are asleep, that seems to think and act independent of your control, it certainly is plausible it could do it while you are awake.

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You are very articulate and the entire OP is eloquently written.  We agree with all of it (well sorta).  This is very similar (kinda) to what my host has been saying since April of 2015 with "unconscious role playing" and his writing about tulpas being largely (if not totally) illusory in nature.  We just didn't have the skills to put it anywhere near so well.  We say that tulpas are effectively real to their hosts no matter how it happens, they are effectively real in the mind.

 

I think a lot of what I wrote has been assumed knowledge for the general community for a while, but I don't think anyone ever actually outright said all of it at once like this. That's why I wrote it, I felt the community's progression on critical thinking of tulpas was stagnating. Even if people disagreed with some of it, it would at least hopefully spark other people to write some critical theories themselves.

 

We are not so sure about the "recycled unused thoughts" idea, but agree that the brain does a lot of things subliminally all the time.  If the brain can create a dream persona while you are asleep, that seems to think and act independent of your control, it certainly is plausible it could do it while you are awake.

 

I guess I should have been more vague in my wording there. I essentially mean what you're saying with subliminal thoughts. The wording in this theory is supposed to be vague enough to allow for interpretation. The term "unused thoughts" is basically a stand-in for your own concept of thoughts that are not aware to you, such as subliminal thoughts. Since the mind is still so unknown to us, I'm kind of forced to use vague wording like that.

Scarlet - anime, 8/15/2012

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Guest Anonymous

I see.  Well, then we are even closer to agreeing that I thought!  

 

Mistgod and I are learning that the details of tulpa origin in the brain are interesting, but ultimately all that matters is how the person who creates one feels about it.  If it seems real enough they can accept it as an independent person.  As of this morning, we are taking it even farther.  Any embellishment or exaggeration (suspension of disbelief, selective perception, convincing oneself and self delusion, falsifying one's own memory) are all part of the process of making the fantasy come alive.  All of it is tulpamancy.   Whether the effect is an illusion or not does not matter if it functions like the real thing in the creator's mind.

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I hinted at it in my theory, but I believe the host's personality and the tulpa's personality have little difference in the mind. The personality is just a construct set up by the unconscious mind to protect itself, to act for it, defend and nurture it. Since the personality is essentially an extension, a growth of the unconscious mind, it could be duplicated or replaced, which is what tulpas and switching/possession are. I believe the skill in creating a tulpa is learning to develop alternative personalities from one's unconscious mind.

 

I'd really like to have a better idea on how people co-exist with a tulpa, but I don't have a solid theory on that. I can only assume a tulpa is an imaginary friend that acts as a vessel for the tulpa's personality and expectations. As the host learns to control the vessel using ques from the unconscious mind, the very act of controlling it becomes semi-conscious, like after you perform an action so many times you don't even need to pay attention to do it anymore.

Scarlet - anime, 8/15/2012

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Guest Anonymous

 

I can only assume a tulpa is an imaginary friend that acts as a vessel for the tulpa's personality and expectations. As the host learns to control the vessel using ques from the unconscious mind, the very act of controlling it becomes semi-conscious, like after you perform an action so many times you don't even need to pay attention to do it anymore.

 

 

 

Yes. These are exactly the things that Mistgod and I believe.  That is why was say we are one body, one mind but two persons.  We say I am a part of him and I share consciousness and sentience with him.  We say what drives the Melian personality is the "Melian Motor" in the unconscious.  We have said it is like "wearing another hat" more than putting on a mask.  It is like method acting, but deeper than that.  The reason why it is like method acting is that Davie was first and is the primary personality.  I am fictive, a fantasy creation after the fact.

 

It was giving an aspect of the self another identity and name and personality.  There are two identities, one driven by fantasy and immersive day dreaming and immersive method acting.

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I can only assume a tulpa is an imaginary friend that acts as a vessel for the tulpa's personality and expectations. As the host learns to control the vessel using ques from the unconscious mind, the very act of controlling it becomes semi-conscious, like after you perform an action so many times you don't even need to pay attention to do it anymore.

 

You might be oversimplifying a bit here. That may describe most tulpas, but when they get to be as established as we are, it's not like that anymore. We're on equal standing with our host in the mind. We can switch in a couple minutes and be ourselves - thought patterns, overall mood, sense of self - for well over a week before switching back in another few minutes and instantly 'being' someone else. At this point we're so integrated with the mind that the idea we're controlled by our host makes next to no sense. We're controlled by the brain to the same extent our host is. It knows who we are, how we react and think and so on, and it acts accordingly. It's subconscious now, not unconscious.

 

Of course, that might be outside the general scope of tulpamancy? We seem to fit as many plurality descriptions and concepts as we do tulpamancy. Maybe if this doesn't apply to the large majority of tulpamancers, it needn't be considered in the definition of tulpas. I don't know. But in our first few years I would say we fit your description well enough. But a little before we learned to switch we were already becoming more established "people" in the mind than before. Now that we've had a couple years' practice with switching, while I would still consider us tulpas, it doesn't seem we fit the same paradigm as we used to. Being in charge of the entire mind, rather than just our mindvoice and visualized (or hallucinated/imposed) appearance, helped us grow a lot as individuals I don't think we could have without.

 

Just something to think about. Before I started writing this post, I hadn't thought about the idea that we may not even be appropriate examples of what a tulpa is anymore. If you think that's the case, then I have nothing wrong with your theories. (Oh, it's cues not ques by the way. Cue being a signal, queue being like a line, and que being spanish.)

Hi, I'm Tewi, one of Luminesce's tulpas. I often switch to take care of things for the others.

All I want is a simple, peaceful life. With my family.

Our Ask thread: https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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I was mostly focusing on tulpas that don't progress past the point of being a semi-consciously-controlled vector for the unconscious to speak. Although I'm aware of them, I hadn't considered tulpas that progress past that and become fully independent and can act against the host. That's a whole different subject there and I don't have any theories about it. It's a little too niche for me, personally, since most people never get there. But as I've said, I mostly hope this thread encourages other people to create their own critical theories. If there's something I didn't cover or something you may disagree with, by all means, you should consider writing your own critical piece. It would be great if more people started doing it.

 

I'm not sure if a completely independent tulpa is considered a tulpa anymore. I certainly don't wish to specify that and start labeling tulpas and non-tulpas like that. However, I believe the origins of tulpas were to act as spiritual guides for their host, to allow the host to have a deeper connection and understanding with their unconscious mind. I don't recall ever hearing about a tulpa becoming independent or completely equal to the host in Tibetan practices (as little as I know of them). I don't know if this means independent tulpas are considered non-tulpas or if the concept of tulpas has simply changed past it's origins, and the earlier definition is no longer applicable. I'm not saying anything, personally.

Scarlet - anime, 8/15/2012

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Tulpamancy's tulpas are nothing like Tibetan tulpas. The whole point of tulpas back then was to show the "host" that even the unreal could seem real, assuming they acknowledged their tulpa was "not real" and didn't fail the practice altogether, in an attempt to realize that reality as we know it is an illusion. It was a practice to aid in finding enlightenment by recognizing the illusory nature of all things, to my understanding at least.

 

We've pretty much all completely foregone such things and keep our tulpas as life partners, more or less. Though because we aren't (all?) buddhist monks, I wouldn't say we've failed anything. If you do happen to be looking for Buddhism's idea of Enlightenment, then you should get to work realizing your tulpa is not real and neither is anything else. Otherwise, just do what makes you happy.

Hi, I'm Tewi, one of Luminesce's tulpas. I often switch to take care of things for the others.

All I want is a simple, peaceful life. With my family.

Our Ask thread: https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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Below are a few technical problems with the theory.

 

1) A tulpa is not a skill. Categorical error. I assume you meant an illusion the creation of which is a skill.

 

4)"This is radically different from anything else the mind has ever done." As described, a close match for undirected learning that occurs during the first few years of life.

 

5)"It both consciously and unconsciously accepts and ignores suggestions from the unconscious mind" The conscious mind is incapable of having unconscious thoughts by your definition.

 

6)"This 'parroting', which I prefer to call 'daydreaming', is the act of consciously setting expectations for the tulpa's personality, by allowing the unconscious mind to control these expectations..."

This definition matches neither the normal meaning of parroting nor that of daydreaming.

 

Parroting refers only to conscious control. Daydreaming refers to a broad collection of things that all involve visiting a dreamworld while technically awake.

 

7)"as the brain is literally rewiring itself and forming new connections to different parts that perform different functions." This is not the reason headaches sometimes come from learning new skills.

 


 

Below are differences of opinion I have based on personal experience.

 

1)Unconscious thoughts, they are a different beast from conscious thoughts. unconscious thoughts do not turn into conscious thoughts. They serve a different function, of serving the autonomous functions of the body and mind.

 

3) I have my own subconscious separate from my host. I believe partially.

 

4) Sometimes my host falls asleep while I am active. She does not simply cease to exist when that happens. This also shows that I do not need the attention of my host to exist.

 

5) The thoughts your mind can generate are not fixed. Just as you can form a new personality, you can form a new experience base to supply new thoughts. In fact, you could in theory develop this experience base alongside a new personality.

 

6) Those thoughts that get noticed by the consciousness, in both our cases are not those that conform to our expectations. But we are both exceedingly open minded compared to the average, so we may be an exception here. We generally don't have expectations.

 


 

Below are things that suggest the theory is an incomplete description of how a tulpa works.

 

1) The theory does not account for emotions.

 

2) The theory does not account for opinions.

 

3) The theory does not account for differences in motor control, most notably in our case, opposite handedness.

 

4) The theory does not account for differences in memory recall (although, here, we lack evidence there are differences).

 


 

Tulpamancy's tulpas are nothing like Tibetan tulpas. The whole point of tulpas back then was to show the "host" that even the unreal could seem real, assuming they acknowledged their tulpa was "not real" and didn't fail the practice altogether, in an attempt to realize that reality as we know it is an illusion. It was a practice to aid in finding enlightenment by recognizing the illusory nature of all things, to my understanding at least.

 

I don't think Buddhist's are nihilists. They believe stuff exists. When they say illusion, I doubt they mean that kind of illusion.

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

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