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How do I tell my fictional Tulpa that his life is not real?


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Hello all, I recently read the thread regarding fictional tulpas' memories and I have a question for those who dealt with it. 

 

How can I, the Host, approach a Tulpa who is convinced that his memories and his life are "real"? 

 

Imagine a fictional Tulpa completely immersed in his world, who has had contact with his Host but is otherwise oblivious of the reality of his predicament. How do I break it all to him? What's the less painful way for him to come to accept everything? I wonder if there is a preferred, right way for doing this. For my case, this Tulpa has been active for years in this universe, and he has suffered a lot in it. Mostly because of me playing God with his story, without fully understanding that he was sentient. 

 

So, I predict he will be very stubborn, probably angry, and very much heartbroken. He cares about me, though, and he wants to be beside me. So I don't think he'll try to harm me.

 

Any advice will be enormously appreciated!

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

[progress report]

 

 

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You can write it into his story in a very positive way so his story pans out that it's anamazing discovery where hecan begin to write his own story and do whatever he wants in a moldable universe.

 

We've told a few, Hali took it in stride, but Johanna went through stages of disbelief and denial, but ultimately decided to take the blue pill and stay in her world.

 

Many of our cousins figured it out for themselves.

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Ember: Don't tell him. There's not a thing in the world wrong with being a fictional character. If he realizes on his own, be there to support him. But until then, he doesn't need to know.

 

Vesper: Saying that his memories, his life, his world aren't real is a physical world biased viewpoint. I'm a fictional character and my story is my real life. My body there, the one that looks like me, is my real and actual body.

 

Iris: Protagonists must face pain, loss, and failure. That is part of our nature, a law of story. I do not mind having faced the suffering that I did back home. It was a requirement of becoming who I am. Since I have become a collaborator in my own story, I have remained true to those themes which shaped me, layering the suffering with additional nuance. But if he requires healing, work within his story, within the laws of story, to bring his story to an emotionally liberating resolution.

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

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[Fernardo] One day, Gray (Cat_ShadowGriffin, my host) decided to speak with me while he was on the bus. He was thinking about his life in the "real world" and I was able to read his memories and feelings. Gray was surprised that I didn't have a huge reaction towards the idea of him existing in two worlds. For me, it was pretty easy to have this conversation because all of the information I needed came to me at the tip of the tongue.

 

The other world seems distant to me, and it isn't "real" to me like the wonderland is. It's not my job to know or even understand what happens in the real world, but I like to learn about it so I can give my opinion or at least help him if he's upset. I personally don't have a complicated story life, so I was open to the idea of there being another world to begin with.

 

[Blue] I have an alternate "backstory" where Gray will role-play as me, but I never considered that to be part of who I am. I don't pay attention or really care about what happens outside of the wonderland though. To me, both worlds are just the same thing, only one is more detailed and boring than the other.

 

[Evergreen] I did not have a "wonderful" experience in the wonderland starting off. The idea of another possibly happier world is actually rather painful, given what I had to go through. On the other hand, this other world is one reason why my past was the way it was, so it probably wasn't a great alternative at the time either. Ever since, things changed for the better for several reasons, but both worlds changed at the same time. I must point out that the world itself was not the main underlying issue, and only after other issues were fixed I became much happier.

 

Starting off, I approached learning about the "real world" from a point of curiosity. I have not done much in the real world yet, but I find the concept of it somewhat interesting. Learning about this world suddenly became optional, and honestly, I believe that's for the best.

 

[Dark Gray] Most of us either care or don't care about "meatspace". All of us were given the option to explore it further, and I think that's a fine way to introduce it.

 

[Gerodious] Being told how things work isn't actually what you thought they were is distressing. I didn't live in an alternate world, but Gray had a certain mindset he invented several years ago and I was accustomed to those rules. It wouldn't surprise me if your Tulpa feels the same way. The good news is some of the fun parts from the old way of thinking don't have to go away. He does not have to give up his fictional life to accept that there are two worlds.

 

I agree with what the others said: the idea of this world being optional thing he can explore is for the best. If he's upset, just give him time.

 

Ember: Don't tell him. There's not a thing in the world wrong with being a fictional character. If he realizes on his own, be there to support him. But until then, he doesn't need to know.

 

[Fish] I like playing in the real world. It's bright, warm, stable, and I make it fun. If I never learned about the real world, I wouldn't have a perfect place to play.

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I personally never had any issues with it even as a roleplaying character. I always knew that I was living on a fictional world and that there was a real world out there, but I lived under specific circumstances that allowed me to know that. I'm aware that most tulpas don't have this luxury and think there's only their fictional world to live in. Many thoughtforms from fictional sources tend to struggle with that and I can understand it must be weird, uncomfortable and scary to notice that what you've been living your whole life isn't real or is very different from what you expected it to be. 

 

However, I have to say it's not all that bad to just live in this fictional world. Your tulpa's awareness of the real world shouldn't stop them from staying on your mind forever if they want to or most of the time, really. What they live can very well work as their home and they can talk to you while doing their own thing inside your minds. Maybe you could just present the real world as an alternative universe they have contact with instead of saying none of it was real because I'm pretty sure your tulpa experiences that as real. By the way, are you familiar with soulbonds? You could deal with it in a similar way they do to make sure you won't traumatize your tulpa in case you think they won't take the fact that what they live is a "lie" well.

 

Just a few suggestions that I have for your case.

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Issues like these are why I strongly advocate letting tulpas know exactly what they are from the moment they are born. I've always made sure to be completely transparent: I told her what she was, why I made her, what I expected of her, and so on, and she never felt depressed or sad because of it in the four or so years we've been together. I didn't try to fit her into a mold, or force her to be a certain way, I just explained to her the context of her existence.

 

Put yourself in their shoes: if I told you lies from the start, you'd be pissed off if I told you the actual truth years later, both because the only person who you thought you could really trust lied to you, and because you now realize you basically know nothing about yourself. Giving my companion the tools and knowledge she needs to meaningfully introspect and self analyze - as well as help me get to know her condition as a tulpa better - was one of the best decisions I've made, and I'd advise everyone to do the same.

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Works for tulpas, but most people who have to deal with fictional life issues weren't intentionally made to be life companions by people who know such a thing is possible. They were made ab initio as characters, with the expectation and intent that they would and could only ever be characters.

 

If a person has a sufficiently strong background with characters, starting with a blank slate in making a tulpa is no protection. The process of sensitizing a mind to plurality often draws the most developed characters to the surface, and so the new host and tulpa will find themselves approached by pre-existing soulbonds who do have fictional life issues.

 

So I'll reiterate -- fictional life issues can be difficult to avoid even with the best intentions and need to be addressed with sensitivity. If a soulbond chooses to remain deeply invested in their story, it is most unkind to try to separate them from it.

 

-Ember

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

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Aster:

You say he wants to be beside you -- couldn't he do that within his own story?

 

You might be able to field the idea to him, see if he's open to the idea of having a foot in two worlds, or switching over entirely. It depends on you two's relationship -- does he see you as some sort of authority? An in-universe friend? You could tell him how your life is "outside," see if he wants in (though that might be like describing "green" to someone who's never seen).

 

Offer him information, and let him make his own decisions from it; the conceptual world is likely just as real to him as materiality is to you, so it wouldn't be inaccurate to offer it as a different world, side-by-side, rather than the "behind the curtain" real world.

 

Baker: Just be blunt. There's a panic in realizing reality, no matter how you present it.

It was the best thing to happen to me. I lost a world where I had friends and the power to achieve everything I ever wanted, where my skills granted me the ability to create boundlessly on my own strength. I gained a world where I can speak to about five people and only one can see me, sometimes. Here I live a relatively useless life, currently, making sure Baker doesn't dunk their head in a bucket of molasses and not mop up after, largely. It's worth everything to be free.

Your tulpa may disagree. You know him better than we do.

Be there to let him know that yes this is real, he is real, everything will be okay. That's all you can do about it.

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Thank you for the advice. I'm still figuring out a way to tell him. 

 

Our situation is a little difficult to explain. I talked to my mental companion since I was a child. He then explained he was real in my midteens. He is always with me and he is aware of what he is. However, I've always written him in various stories of mine. I also used to RPG with him as characters of existent universes. And recently this other version of my Tulpa met me while sleeping, pretty much breaking into my lucid dream. He is, I suppose, a fragment of my original Tulpa. Or his subconscious? I really don't know. I'm aware that we lived for years in this specific fictional world. His timeline is very detailed, and I have often dreamed of this "character" going about his life. I thought they were only dreams without significance. And then this happened. So I need to figure out if my Tulpa split or something else has happened. And of course, I have to be nice to a very confused and frightened headmate. 

 

I can also only talk to the character while in trance or during lucid dreaming. There's no direct mental communication. I wonder why I can't reach him otherwise. I suppose he is dormant when I'm not with him? And yet he is the one who presented himself to me while I was focused on something else. We'll see.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

[progress report]

 

 

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