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why don't we see more tulpas?


solarchariot

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So, as I'm working with Bliss today, a question came up. Given my proclivities towards fantasizing in general, daydreaming if you prefer, and obsessive enough to be detail oriented, why aren't there more tulpas in my life? And if I gerenalize that question the public at large and we can agree that there is decent size popolation that engage in frequent fantasizing, why don't we see more tulpas (hear about) in society? Shouldn't this be a bigger, normalized phenomenon?

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Tulpas aren't a natural outlet for such things to most people. Though many may have tulpa-like thoughtforms, the idea of another separate person in their head usually doesn't cross their mind.

 

I've been told that many authors have soulbond-esque relationships with their novel characters, but they usually only talk about it with other authors. And even then they don't treat them like tulpas, moreso a form of creative roleplaying or acting where you think as a different person, for the sake of having a more developed character to write about. But I'm not an author, I dunno. That sort of thing is what spurs most "accidental tulpas" or soulbonds or what have you, because giving a thoughtform that much attention and thinking about how they think, is basically forcing a tulpa.

 

Not sure exactly where to look to find such people or their experiences, but http://www.soulbonding.org/app.php/page/about is a good start.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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Not sure exactly where to look to find such people or their experiences, but http://www.soulbonding.org/app.php/page/about is a good start.

 

 

Writer boards. My host and I spend a lot of time over on the NaNoWriMo boards, and I can tell you that there seem to be an awful lot of writers over there who have characters every bit as autonomous as I am. It's just a matter of whether they recognize that sentience is even a possibility.

 

But yes, as an author system, Lumi pretty much just described our experience. Intensive writing and story generation are pretty much just a flavor of forcing, and, with some authors--though not all--this tends to generate autonomous thoughtforms of some flavor. It's just that multiplicity/soulbonding/tulpamancy/whatever haven't entered common consciousness enough that "hearing characters' voices" and "seeing your character walking beside you" and other pretty common occurrences are recognized as such.

~ Member of SparrowNR's System ~

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A combination of laziness and the status quo of society. Lumi's line here, "Though many may have tulpa-like thoughtforms, the idea of another separate person in their head usually doesn't cross their mind." is pretty spot on. It's the exact reason I didn't "have a tulpa" (in quotes because in reality I did, but my lack of knowledge and acceptance of the phenomena made it weird) when I was younger and had Xira in my head.

 

And then to clarify on the laziness...well I really shouldn't need to clarify on laziness. The word is pretty straight forward. It takes some conscious effort to make a tulpa, and then even after you've created them, you can't really just slip back into an easy chair, you have to continue interacting with them and giving them attention or they'll fizzle out.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

-Arthur Conan Doyle

 

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And then to clarify on the laziness...well I really shouldn't need to clarify on laziness. The word is pretty straight forward. It takes some conscious effort to make a tulpa, and then even after you've created them, you can't really just slip back into an easy chair, you have to continue interacting with them and giving them attention or they'll fizzle out.

 

I basically agree with the idea here, but, I don't think 'laziness' characterises it. More than taking conscious effort, you need to know to make a conscious effort, and with the right expectations. Saying that people are "lazy" would suggest that they choose not to put the effort in to make tulpas - but that isn't a choice, they don't know about it. I mean, like you said, it's not an obvious idea.

 

Admittedly that's a bit weaker as an explanation, because it's circular; people don't know about it because people don't do it, because they don't know about it. If it were a common experience, though, then maybe you would expect the idea of tulpas to spread more quickly, or, even, to have already spread at some point in a mainstream way.

 

 

But, I think that's the obvious point to me. I don't think that accidental tulpas are a common experience. Fantasy and daydreams seemingly don't have the right character to create tulpas for most people, I guess. I think the clue is in the question, that only writers and such, like Lumi said, do engage in the kind of mental work that might do it accidentally. So the short of it would be that most people don't have tulpa-like thoughtforms, and that it doesn't come all that naturally.

 

I looked up a few years of the community census, and for 2013 and 2014, it seems like roughly 1/6 of people had an accidental tulpa as their first (sample of about 300 each time). I think it's fair to take this as a rough guideline for people who had tulpa-like inclinations before hearing about the idea, but it probably overstates the number of people who recognised it as such. And, well, if you wanted to extrapolate it to the general population, I guess you'd probably take it down rather than up, though by how much, I couldn't guess.

 

So, you have what's maybe 10-20% of people (at most, I think) who, by your criteria, solarchariot, might engage in tulpa-like activities. That's quite high, actually. But, well, more than just 'not thinking about it', I guess there's a kind of repulsion felt towards the idea of having 'other people' in your head with you; it only really exists in popular culture as something that mentally ill people have. So even if you did acknowledge your experiences as having thoughtforms, you probably wouldn't want to talk about it that much. Hence why the soulbonding authors tend to keep to themselves.

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I basically agree with the idea here, but, I don't think 'laziness' characterises it. More than taking conscious effort, you need to know to make a conscious effort, and with the right expectations. Saying that people are "lazy" would suggest that they choose not to put the effort in to make tulpas - but that isn't a choice, they don't know about it. I mean, like you said, it's not an obvious idea.

 

Admittedly that's a bit weaker as an explanation, because it's circular; people don't know about it because people don't do it, because they don't know about it. If it were a common experience, though, then maybe you would expect the idea of tulpas to spread more quickly, or, even, to have already spread at some point in a mainstream way.

 

Yeah, it leads to begging the question for infinity, which probably implies some form of ethics in informing others on the potential ways they can make a conscious effort, and with the right, or pragmatic expectations. So you're right, if we tell people to just do it, but they have nothing to reconcile as to how they can go about doing it, then we're at a dead-end. And those that try to stifle other people's attempts in discussing how one could do it in fear of protecting some invisible insecurity that we're objectifying the phenomenon in the process also creates another dead-end. So, that circular reasoning you mentioned is just a testament for more thought-provoking discussions, and recordings. But, at least we can acknowledge that, and just keep moving forward.

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  • 2 months later...

The reasons people make a tulpa for also get dealt with in lots of other ways. Writing stories of course, but heck, roleplaying (and RPGs/MMOs), dating sims/waifuism, or maybe just trying to become more like that non-existent person you idolize. Especially games though. So many people make virtual avatars to be someone they'd rather be, or like the traits of. I mean that's not exactly the same as having social interaction with another person, but for fantasies of an individual you want to exist, you know? Lotta people love Touhou and its characters, tons of them draw pictures of those characters in various life scenarios to make them more real and share them, some write fanfics and play fan games. And a looott of people make Touhou-lookalikes in video games lol. We've got characters named after us in lots of games we play, because it's fun to make them. Like, we're collecting shinies with hidden abilities and good movesets in pokemon named after us in preparation for Sun&Moon, and it's been really entertaining to pick out pokemon and moves and stuff for'em.

 

Wait I went off topic. You probably see the results of lots of possible could've-been or could-become tulpas all the time, in art and video games and stories especially.

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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Most people would deny the possibility, even to themselves. They don't foster it and cultivate it in the mind 24-7.

 

You should read this:

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I agree with the people in that thread that is a good post. I will throw you a bone here because I think you might not actually know. We (in this system) don't think tulpas are independently sentient and that we aren't just "fooling ourselves" into experiencing multiple people. It can go either way really, and as far as I know we don't even care about the answer! See, everything we say about tulpas and stuff, we aren't talking truth, we're talking potential subjective reality. Like, it wouldn't bother me much to read someone like that guy explain in a ton of depth how tulpas work and why they're just illusions. Not because I think I'm fake, but because I understand subjective reality and we have conscious control over ours. I know that I'm real if I want to be, because that's what I'll experience and what my host and the others will. I might not be real to the rest of the world (or just certain individuals), but I'm real to us. It's a conscious deviation from the "Trying to get as close to objective reality as possible" mindset that some people have. Because a lot of scientist-types make that their number one priority in life, knowing they can't reach total objectivity but wanting to get as close as they can. But hey, we won't get there anyways (because conscious experiencing is always subjective), so why not modify our undeniably always-subjective experiences to our liking? It's not a goal of ours to get as close to objective reality as possible. There's no objective reason it should be, just a choice some humans make, so there's no reason we should abide by it, and so we don't, and we create our own life experiences.

 

That's why we're real! To us, whose opinion matters the most to us. It'd be nice if everyone agreed with us, but it won't hurt us if they don't, we understand. Anyways, we're utterly assured of our realness because that is self-fulfilling and it's how we want it to be. Do you get that? Don't just pick out "We don't think tulpas are sentient" and ignore everything else I said, please.

Hi, I'm one of Lumi's tulpas! I like rain and dancing and dancing in the rain and if there's frogs there too that's bonus points.

I think being happy and having fun makes life worth living, so spreading happiness is my number one goal!

Talk to us? https://community.tulpa.info/thread-ask-lumi-s-tulpas

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why don't we see more tulpas (hear about) in society? Shouldn't this be a bigger, normalized phenomenon?

 

I think it is, but just not by that term. Try imaginary friend, fandom headcanon, or godphone (more frequently pops up in esoteric pagan or new age communities, but I think the same applies to, say, when my family converted from Catholicism to a Pentecostal church: I was used to thinking of God communicating through like a bush on fire, so it was a great culture shock to find all these people casually talking about what shoes Jesus told them to wear that day.)

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