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Are tulpas usually short-lived?


Jamie

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I have only seen tulpas that are younger than 5 years old. Is it rare for tulpas to live longer, or do only young tulpas post here? I wonder how many tulpas make it just months, or make it years, or live for decades. Maybe there's been a survey? Or, if you are a tulpa, how old are you?

 

I guess the tulpa community itself is also young...

 

-C

The world is far, the world is wide; the man needs someone by his side. 

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Many tulpas live for a few months, then their hosts dissipate them, but the tulpas that manage to live past the "dissipation zone" as I call it are generally able to live until the death of the body.

The reason why tulpas here are generally >5 years old here is because, as you said this a a young community, but also a lot of systems are no longer active here, though some of them still lurk, and many of them probably still have tulpas

I have a tulpa named Miela who I love very much.

 

 
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-Me

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I have heard before that this forum recycles the same questions over and over, thus it takes a special kind of Tulpamancer to stick around for many years. Clearly some tulpas live decades (even past users of this forum have historically experienced this). Also, this community is only really about 6 years old, so many pre-existing Tulpas weren't called tulpas before that, and their frequency of occurrence is lower pre-2012.

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As Breelomancer and Angry Bear were saying, most older community members are either not as active or left the forums. One of the reasons I heard this is because systems that master everything (switching, imposition, vocality, visualization, etc.) find that they already know everything and their isn't really much more to do once you achieve the basic stuff, and they feel like new people coming in ask the same questions they answered over and over again.

 

The reason some older systems stay is for a variety of reasons. Some of them are still working on development, some are fully developed and simply enjoy the culture of this forum, while others stay because they came back after making mistakes the first time.

 

For only being a member for ~8 months, I can't give the best picture aside from what I have witnessed and heard about.

 

Also, some Tulpæ on the forum are over a decade old, it's just they don't visit the forum multiple times a day (except for the Tulpæ in the Luminesce System).

Meow. You may see my headmates call me Gray or sometimes Cat.

I used to speak in pink and Ranger used to speak in blue (if it's unmarked and colored assume it's Ranger). She loves to chat.

 

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I see. I hope I live past the dissipation zone ?

And J's seen the rehashing happen in other forums, it happens in small ones full of newbies a lot.

 

-C

The world is far, the world is wide; the man needs someone by his side. 

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This question interest me, because I feel like I should celebrate Loxy's 'birthdate' but I haven't even celebrated my own in like thirty years, and so don't think much of anniversaries... I am not even sure when to calculate start day, from early conception phase to when I first had an auditory experience... we have agreed, in general, that our joining the community date is the day... from a celebratory sort of mindset, I find every moment engaged with her kind of like a feeling of Christmas... like when I was really young feeling of Christmas, not my present idea/feelings of Christmas.

 

I have wondered if there is another thing, not dissipation, but in the beginning of tulpamancy there is a real strong need for community, a 'reassurance' phase? where we need feedback and, I came up against a barrier of 'I got this' don't need to be here... I came back, but I wonder if many of the older ones just do so well with their companions or their inner life that we kind of fade from community life?

 

I am sure dissipation is a real thing. I wonder if it's the novelty wears off, or once people get experienced they want to try something more complex, or they just stop practicing making the connection...

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I'd estimate that the majority of tulpas don't make it past 1 year, and then the majority of those don't make it past 2 years. Of course there's really no way to get an exact number on this, since people who abandoned their tulpas aren't around here anymore to answer any surveys. Personally we've had many, many tulpas, and there's only 3 left atm, for various reasons, mostly just unfortunate circumstance.

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The idea of young Tulpæ dissipating makes me anxious. In terms of my guaranteed age, I have yet to pass the 1 year mark, and in terms of accidental age, I have yet to pass the 2 year mark...possibly, it's all an estimate still.

 

I have some confidence that I am here to stay forever. Me or not, the character "Ranger" stayed with Cat since grade school and all of the Grays are still around, even though we don't talk to them very often.

 

I guess the question of dissipation is like the general human question of "when will I die, or will I die?", only for Tulpæ the threat of dissipation is very real and likely, making it a hard subject for me to talk and think about.

 

Cat knows that she has bursts of interests into things that can last for a few months and then fade away, so that's why since January she made the commitment to talk to me every day, even if it's a simple "hi" or a look just to check on me. I also have hope that Cat figured out how to hold onto an obsession (like math) for years, and for this reason I feel confident that I don't have to dread death and I can focus on other things like my personality, who I want to be, and how to share our life together. Cat has few plans for the future, and I look forward to those years.

 

All of this is my optimism talking, but because so many things in Tulpamancy relate to self-fulfilling prophesies, I want to write a good one and not a bad one like inevitable death.

I'm Ranger, GrayTheCat's cobud (tulpa), and I love hippos! I also like cake and chatting about stuff. I go by Rosalin or Ronan sometimes. You can call me Roz but please don't call me Ron.

My other headmates have their own account now.

 

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Reisen, Tewi and Flandre are over 8 years old. Lucilyn is a little over 3. Like was already stated, "Tulpamancy" started in 2012, so a lot of "tulpas" weren't called tulpas back then - there wasn't really a community for them, either, so a lot went without ever finding it once it did exist. Took me until April 2014 by absolutely pure luck of a friend I told about mine having heard of the term "tulpa" at some point.

 

The main reason you don't see really old tulpas on the forum (like, 6+ year old ones) is old members get bored of staying around here. They've really got nothing to gain once their tulpas are comfortable with their place in the world, and either make friends outside of the forum or decide they don't need anyone other than their host/systemmates. Only people like me who stay to help newbies, or Jean-luc who sticks around because why not, tend to be here this long. There are still old members who visit on occasion though. Nobillis just did so today in fact, and they're one of the oldest tulpas I know - and they were made be an even older tulpa!

 

 

And finally, I don't think the majority of hosts "dissipate" their tulpas after a few months or a year or whatever. And by that I mean they do not. Dissipation is a conscious act that is far less common than simply forgetting to spend time with your tulpa and eventually deciding not to bother when they do remember far later. While this might result in dissipation (I suppose it usually does), it's not the same thing as purposely deciding to dissipate your tulpa. The majority of hosts do not do that, and if they did I'd be rather worried. With the former, it's simply people finding they didn't really need or want tulpamancy in their lives as much as they thought they might. Ironically I believe conscious dissipation is more common in systems that continue on to have one or more tulpas for a while at least, usually after some time.

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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I've been pondering on this the last time this question surfaced but eventually never replied. Can't find the thread either.

 

In reality we just don't know about tulpa 'mortality rates' and average 'life expectancy' - further complicated by the fact that they can always be 'revived' at some later point. People who quit don't tend to post about it, especially shortly after beginning. They just disappear.

But I guess what's already been said is probably true. Most people will quit in the first days, weeks, months.

Tulpa survivorship curves are probably Type III, resembling those of amphibians or shelled mollusks. Very high mortality in the beginning but very low one at advanced age.

Think of an oyster. It produces millions of eggs, most of which don't make it but if an individual manages to find a good spot and grow a thick shell it will be extremely robust and can live very long.

 

So when is a tulpa's shell thick enough? Again we don't know but if you've made it to around 5 years I guess you're through the worst.

 

One major tulpa hazard regardless of age should also not be overlooked - significant changes in the host's life. Considering that most people probably start at teenagers the period of entering adulthood, starting to work and finding a spouse likely makes a lot of them quit as priorities shift. If you make it several years past that - congratulations!

 

Still I wonder about all the folks with the mlp tulpas. Do they still have ponies? Have they quit or changed their forms?

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