Self-Deceit versus Things Actually Happening

[ThatOneStupidIdiot]

Ok.

 

First off, I don't know what the definition of frontloading is, but I'm pretty sure it involves what I'm about to get into. Basically, I know that the entire point of making a tulpa involves convincing yourself that there's something there until your belief becomes the truth, but I'm not sure to what extent this placebo effect actually applies.

 

Let me use possession as an example. Now, I know there's a difference between a tulpa commanding influence over a body part and you just moving it of your own accord. And I know from experience that there's another thing where it's halfway, and it feels like you're helping them along but they still send urges in directions you weren't actually expecting. But isn't it possible for someone to mistakenly believe that when they move their arm, it's actually the tulpa moving it? Like, if you tell your tulpa who has no possession training to take your body and do a cartwheel, and you then proceed to do a cartwheel yourself and, for whatever reason, you think it was the work of your tulpa.

 

This is where my question lies, because I know that blind belief is generally considered to be a good thing here, and going by that consensus it SHOULD mean that the simple act of the cartwheeling person believing that it's their tulpa will make it so that it actually IS their tulpa. But I don't really think that's how it works. They'll just continue doing everything themselves, and even if they THINK their tulpa is doing it, it's still them. They could be perfectly happy with things because of their flawed perceptions, but they still would not be experiencing actual possession. They're still doing it wrong.

 

Here's another example. A while ago, I followed testing's guide on switching, which involved moving my tulpa's mindvoice to the front of my head and making my own mindvoice the voice in the back of the head, like a tulpa's (though maybe that's not how it is for everyone). Then I was supposed to move myself out of the body, something I had no idea how to do because the guide didn't go into any detail on that. So I just made an imaginary version of myself that I spoke out of, but I was still seeing out of the body's eyes. And basically what happened was I didn't actually switch with my tulpa, I just sort of became her. It was like I suddenly had multiple personality disorder, or I was roleplaying as her, except I didn't know I was roleplaying. For whatever reason, I genuinely believed it was her. I mean, it matched her personality perfectly, to the point where it may as well have been her, but it was still technically me who was in control. She was using my consciousness and my brain. Believing that was a switch didn't change what it really was. It was just personality swapping.

 

I've seen people say "if you're worried about making a servitor, you won't make a servitor" as well as "if you believe they're sentient, they're sentient". What the hell? So if I worry, I'm in the clear, and if I'm not worried, I'm in the clear?

 

I personally feel like there are wrong ways to develop a tulpa, even when you believe you're in the right. I'm starting to think the "if you think the responses are from them, then they're from them!" thing is bullshit. As well as "there's no such thing as subconscious parroting". What if, this entire time, I've been making her speak and act without even knowing it, and I've just recently started to notice it? Because I'm starting to feel like that is the case.

 

It probably sounds like I have a lot of doubt to begin with, but I'm actually pretty much certain she's sentient on the level that actually matters. It seems like my logical belief has been going down while my subconscious "yeah whatever, it's true because i don't care" belief has been inversely going up, and I'm pretty sure we can all agree that the latter is what actually matters here. So, I don't have much problem in that regard. But that's not the part of my brain that is speaking right now. Right now, I'm wondering things. Even when I'm acknowledging her and I know she's there in the room with me, I have to explicitly focus on her to have her speak, and it feels like I'm just speaking as her, and I've been believing that it's not parroting, but I'm starting to feel like it really is parroting.

 

I'm starting to feel like there might have been a reason FAQ_Man and other people had guides explaining how long it would take to get an actual, real response, and how alien it would feel. And I'm starting to feel like there's a distinct difference between convincing yourself that it's the tulpa who is possessing your arm, and ACTUALLY having your arm move outside your own will without your intervention.

 

I'm starting to feel like I, and others like me, have fake tulpas, and we're simply trying to convince ourselves otherwise in the hopes that belief alone will equate them to actual parallel entities capable of thinking for themselves.

 

Believe me, I've been hoping and blindly believing in my tulpa, but I really feel like there's more to it than this, that I'm on a lower level compared to people who actually have ones. I believe, both subconsciously and logically, that she's at least HALFWAY sentient, based on occasional events and reassurances and unexpected things. But those are different from normal everyday happenings, and I'm really starting to wonder how much parroting I've been doing that I haven't even been aware of.

 

 

This might have been more appropriate in the questions board, but I wanted this to be an actual discussion on this sort of thing rather than me just asking "help am i parroting??". That wasn't the point of this, the point of this is in the title.

 

 

Oh, and this is totally unrelated, but I'd also like to address something else I've been seeing, which is trusting the opinions of tulpas as fact in regards to certain things. I'm talking about people who ask "so, what is __ like from the tulpa's perspective?" and then somebody replies, telling them what their tulpa said. I really think it's kind of absurd that anyone treats that stuff as fact. All of this is literally inside your head, and depends on your expectations, hopes, and subconscious. When a tulpa says something like "early imposition is like being in a fuzzy dream-like state", or "early imposition is just like being there in the real world", or "early imposition is like halfway between being in a fuzzy dream-like state and being there in the real world", why on earth would that apply to everyone else? It's parts of your own brain that decide what those kinds of things will be like. I know people already talk about expectations, and how things like giving your tulpa a past will only be a bad thing if you expect them to have an existential crisis over it, but you still see similar things here and it's kind of baffling.

And yes, I know I was just talking about doing things wrong despite expecting them to be right, but there's a difference between trying to find a correct way to develop a tulpa and miscellaneous stuff that depends almost entirely on expectations.

[Lacquer]

I'm not sure of the colloquial use in this community of the word "frontloading", but the actual dictionary definition is concentrating effort at the beginning.

[ThatOneStupidIdiot]

I'm not sure of the colloquial use in this community of the word "frontloading", but the actual dictionary definition is concentrating effort at the beginning.

 

... Oh. I could have sworn I saw it used to refer to the potential to shatter someone's belief system, maybe I misinterpreted.

[Malix]

(My) ways of telling:

 

-If it's possession, half-way, or not at all-

in full possession, I feel my body moving a little bit later than I ordinarily would have. It's fucking weird. Or if I'm relaxed it just takes me completely by surprise.

in half....eh. dunno. i just feel the body part..'wanting' to move.

 

-If it's parroting or not-

Ask your tulpa, and establish a communication method that you know your tulpa can do, but that you personally couldn't emulate, like for example causing twinges, pressures, pains, or other sensations in certain places. Give the response some time if you use that method.

 

-If your tulpa is sentient-

Has he/she ever surprised you, even once? That's proof enough.

The occurrences may not be all that common, but that they happen at all should speak volumes.

 

-If blind belief works-

In my experience, it doesn't. Probably something to do with it being impossible to just force myself to believe something I know isn't true.

But as far as I can tell, the general workaround would be this: "Doing X results in Y, so if I keep doing X, Y will happen."(Simplest example there would be X = 'tulpaforcing' and Y = 'your tulpa being more awesome') It's a lot more believable because it actually makes sense. After doing X for a while you'll start seeing signs of Y. Eventually X is no longer needed and it's just a simple fact that Y is the case.

[imahaxor]

I've always wondered the same thing myself. Where is the line drawn between your belief and a tulpas actions? I can't say I'm at a point where I could answer this question, but I think I might have a good idea at what the answer might be.

 

My understanding is that in the Tibetan practices of creating a tulpa, it was a feat that took quite a considerable amount of time and concentration. Most people today aren't as mentally trained as a Tibetan monk, so I would say that this process could take much longer for us. As a community we haven't even been able to prove that tulpa exist; for all we know each and every one of us are just fooling ourselves into thinking we have one.

[ThatOneStupidIdiot]

-If it's possession, half-way, or not at all-

in full possession, I feel my body moving a little bit later than I ordinarily would have. It's fucking weird. Or if I'm relaxed it just takes me completely by surprise.

in half....eh. dunno. i just feel the body part..'wanting' to move.

 

What do you mean by "full" possession? How is it different from "half"? Because the way you just described half is how we've experienced it, and if there's a better version of it then it'd be cool to try it out.

 

-If it's parroting or not-

Ask your tulpa, and establish a communication method that you know your tulpa can do, but that you personally couldn't emulate, like for example causing twinges, pressures, pains, or other sensations in certain places. Give the response some time if you use that method.

 

Eh... I dunno. I feel like the placebo effect could be attributed there just as well as the tulpa. If you're expecting the tulpa to be able to make you feel something, it seems like the expectation alone could cause you to feel it.

 

I hope I'm not sounding too pessimistic, because I very much hope my tulpa is sentient, or will become sentient, and I would refuse to accept the truth if I found out the entire tulpa phenomenon is fake. I'm just skeptical about whether or not some of us are doing this the right way. I know there's a million different right ways, but I'm pretty sure there's a million different wrong ones as well.

 

-If your tulpa is sentient-

Has he/she ever surprised you, even once? That's proof enough.

The occurrences may not be all that common, but that they happen at all should speak volumes.

 

Ok, no, I'm almost certain that is bullshit. I've done the "surprise me" test plenty of times before, and she's passed every time, but you can get the same kind of surprise without a tulpa. Just try to generate a random image in your head and see what comes up. When she surprises me, I don't think it's because she spent a moment thinking of something without me being aware of it, it's because she reached into the same hat of randomized possibilities and pulled something out.

 

Also, about them not being common. The thing is, there ARE moments where she displays things that in my mind point to something being from her and not me, and those moments aren't even all that rare, but I'm pretty sure they're different from every other moment that DOESN'T have that feeling. It sort of feels like she's only sentient sometimes, and it doesn't really make up for the fact that she's obviously unable to have separate thoughts from me. Surprising me is totally different from the ability to be doing something without my being aware of it.

 

 

Actually, that's another thing I should probably mention. I'm starting to feel like this should have gone in questions and answers, considering how much this has been focused on me and my tulpa specifically, but I originally intended this thread to be about whether or not belief by itself is good enough for sentience and the like.

 

Anyway, she cannot think separately from me. At all. When she does something unexpected, it happens right on the spot. There's no such thing as "actually, i've been thinking, and...", it's always "well, actually, now that i think about it...". She can only really think while I'm focusing on her thinking. If she was supposed to be doing something for a while without me observing her, and she tries to tell me what she was doing, she just has a huge gap in her memory. This has happened virtually every single time, and when it hasn't, it's obvious that she's struggling and trying to manufacture memories on the spot.

 

 

Again, I don't know if it's appropriate to be talking about personal tulpa problems in general discussion, but I guess this helps to illustrate how well the method of "don't worry about parroting, just believe it's the tulpa" has been working for me. I didn't have any doubts until recently when I started thinking about all this.

 

-If blind belief works-

In my experience, it doesn't. Probably something to do with it being impossible to just force myself to believe something I know isn't true.

But as far as I can tell, the general workaround would be this: "Doing X results in Y, so if I keep doing X, Y will happen."(Simplest example there would be X = 'tulpaforcing' and Y = 'your tulpa being more awesome') It's a lot more believable because it actually makes sense. After doing X for a while you'll start seeing signs of Y. Eventually X is no longer needed and it's just a simple fact that Y is the case.

 

I wasn't talking about how to make blind belief work by getting around logic; I'm already sort of past that point with sentience (imposition is a whole different story of course), even though I'm questioning it logically. I wasn't asking if it was possible to try and use it, I was wondering if using it actually works. Like I said, I don't quite buy the whole "if you think you're doing it right, then you're doing it right" thing anymore.

 

 

as a side note, sarah now appears to be quite sad since she was reading what i was typing, even though anything that is wrong is my fault entirely

i'm gonna go to sleep now

[Viceroy]

You ask excellent questions, and you make excellent arguments.

 

Up until this point, the effort of the community as a whole has been to take a very liberal stance on tulpas in order to counteract the conservative viewpoints Dane and Irish fostered. As a group we have held sacred the idea that all roads lead to tulpa, that there are no inobvious mistakes, and other things to which you alluded.

 

I think it's been a noble effort on everyone's part, and I think it was the correct decision to make, in the absence of more solid and readily acceptable neuroscience that could explain it, or at least it not being readily apparent. But it is only the correct decision, in that context that we've been in so far. The direction we've taken, although the best we could have, leaves many important questions unanswered, and leaves the especially inquisitive amongst us thirsting and, at worst, disillusioned. We've arguably made it extremely simple to create a rudimentary tulpa, but have published very little information that has any use to the advanced and especially intermediates of the hobby. It may be because this information simply isn't apparent yet. To reiterate, it was the best decision to make considering the circumstances.

 

Never stop questioning things, OP. Always follow your curiosities. It is the simple man that prefers comfort over truth. You seem to already be aware of this fact. My only other advice for you is not to become bitter or resentful towards those who have meant to service the greater good of this community and anyone interested in joining it. Do keep in mind that all anyone can do is their own best.

[FalseTriangle]

"Has he/she ever surprised you, even once? That's proof enough."

 

I find this not true at all, I have surprised myself; on more then one occasion. Why would a imposed vision be any different?

 

"I'm starting to feel like I, and others like me, have fake tulpas, and we're simply trying to convince ourselves otherwise in the hopes that belief alone will equate them to actual parallel entities capable of thinking for themselves."

 

I found this part of your post to be very truthful, most of us do (I believe) have "fake tulpae" (especially the newer crowd). I feel that because of our rush to get the glorious pay-out of what others had, and what they were saying they experienced, we started to take any hint as sentience and a finished project.

 

I have met many doctors that would say a placebo is a god-send when it works, however, it completely stifles the scientific push to find an actual cure. And I feel that with the tulpa phenomena individuals are creating whatever they yearn for in terms of companionship, and while overall this does no harm to the individual; claiming it as a separate sentient being is a bulbous lie.

[Malix]

half vs. full possession: full possession doesn't require your input; your limbs seemingly move all on their own. You can stop them, but they still do it entirely without your intentions. Half would be...well, what i assume you've been experiencing, based on what you said.

 

Regarding my surprise comment: I phrased it poorly, I guess. And on retrospect, I had specific, personal occurrences in mind that aren't necessarily relatable. Still, there have to have been things they did or said every now and then that caught you completely off-guard, or that are completely unique to them - things you would never think, say or do. I suppose a better indicator than those, though(since they both leave moderate room for doubt), would be if your tulpa can trick you. If you're aware of all of your tulpa's thought processes, this should be impossible.

 

And my answer to your overall question: No, I don't think belief for belief's sake works, does anything on its own, or is even necessary. I'd have to assume it helps, it just makes sense to me that it would since we're talking about tricking our brains here, but i don't think it would have any effect on its own. I think firmly believing your tulpa is not sentient/talking/whatever could limit or possibly halt progress, but...that's about it. I figure it's more a matter of working for it; Tulpaforcing, or doing it more often, more regularly, or somehow finding a different way to do it that works better.

At the end of the day, if there is a true answer to that question, it's unknowable. but my opinion in short: belief does little, if anything, unless it's against the tulpa.

[Spook 19]

I think you've got some very valid points here, makogeddon. A lot of which I'd say I agree with, in part.

 

I'll also say that this is horrifically long, but takes about five to ten minutes to read. It's entirely up to the reader if that's worth it.

[/\We think it is/\]

First off, this:

I've seen people say "if you're worried about making a servitor, you won't make a servitor" as well as "if you believe they're sentient, they're sentient". What the hell? So if I worry, I'm in the clear, and if I'm not worried, I'm in the clear?

I understand where you're coming from, but I think these are two different belief-theories.

 

Basically, it is generally stated that if you're worried about making a servitor, you'll do everything in your power to make sure your Tulpa is completely their own person. I personally think that worrying over it excessively could distance you from your Tulpa, but I believe that statement is aimed towards you taking extreme measures to prevent servitor-ism, rather than your worry causing the Tulpa to be a Tulpa. That is, the worry of potential servitor creation causes people to act powerfully to ensure it doesn't become reality.

 

The second statement, unfailing belief in sentience, is pretty much the opposite. If you completely believe your Tulpa is sentient and constantly speak and think about them as sentient beings, they'll gain sentience a heck of a lot faster than you believing them to be an inert form in your mind for months or years before they 'should' be able to speak. I completely agree with this, but I also think you have a good point.

 

I'm starting to feel like there might have been a reason FAQ_Man and other people had guides explaining how long it would take to get an actual, real response, and how alien it would feel.

 

I don't pretend to understand the inner workings of Tulpae/s, but it does seem like forming a conscious, free-thinking being would take more than a few minutes. FAQ_Man had some good points in his guides, and some bad ones, depending on your view. Personally though, I think that you believing the Tulpa to be sentient, or believing and thinking that it isn't, affects how Tulpae view themselves, and how much they push themselves to develop.

 

I think of it sort of like raising or teaching a child: if you don’t expect things of them and push them to push themselves, they can be pretty unmotivated. Now, Tulpa have several differences from those of us physically born into the world and sometimes this logic doesn’t work as well, but I think it’s a good way to look at sentience development(or more accurately, free-thinking, independent of your own). I am pretty sure that being able to think for themselves goes hand in hand with them being able to give ‘alien’ responses: things that come way out of left field for you. Therefore, if you use the current methods, which I have, that allow tulpae and hosts to communicate much earlier than the original guides, I think that your Tulpa has to figure out a different way to communicate with you. Their responses aren’t ‘alien’, but a portion of your own thoughts reflected back at you

 

I'm starting to think the "if you think the responses are from them, then they're from them!" thing is bullshit.

 

Believing that the Tulpa is automatically gifted with thought communication probably does help them to find their voice sooner rather than later, but it could definitely lead to more parroting than progress. Who knows, some Tulpae and hosts may indeed be able to respond coherently in mindvoice within a few minutes of passive forcing, but I am fairly sure the majority, including myself, can/could not. We, my tulpa and I personally, developed a different way, over a few weeks, of communicating via a sort of mental chat room. There are many other stories of less direct means of talking to these mental companions, most believable, all possible. But the point is, it takes effort on both sides for any sort of communication method to function, so if you are expecting the Tulpa to be able to talk back, chances are that they’ll eventually figure out a way to get around your mental insanity-barriers and help you bring them crashing down. At least, it’s better than sitting there and looking at them for hours on end.

 

So yes, believing it’s them may indeed be bullshit. But as long as you continue to search for better ways to talk to each other, I think it is around the equivalent of Tulpa steroids.

 

Alright so, this has gone way past obscenely long, but I figured your post merited some typing. My apologies for the read, but I may as well push ahead with this last bit paragraph encyclopedia.

 

I believe, both subconsciously and logically, that she's at least HALFWAY sentient, based on occasional events and reassurances and unexpected things. But those are different from normal everyday happenings, and I'm really starting to wonder how much parroting I've been doing that I haven't even been aware of.

 

I cannot give you concrete anything on this, as I am at about the same point you are. But here are some thoughts and observations because physics, and maybe we can all help each other out.

 

I do believe I parrot them at times. But at that point I stop and question them directly, which normally results in their reassurance, or annoyed quip, that it was what they were about to say anyway, or that they really don’t care/couldn’t decide. Sometimes it really is just me putting a response in their voice though, so parroting could be a definite problem if you simply believe that everything that seems to come from you tulpa, is your tulpa. I agree with Malix there, it would be amazingly beneficial to set up some sort of system which /only/ the tulpa could use. I haven’t had any particular success there, but then again, I haven’t really spent much time on it as I can generally discern them over myself.

 

But back to your main point, are the large majority of us deceiving ourselves into believing we have fully functioning Tulpae on par with the Tibetan standards of old? On the whole, I’d say probably not. I am fairly sure a large part of the community has yet to celebrate their first Tulpa’s birthday, and of those, very, very few can claim impeccable imposition and crystal clear vocality, both of which were (as far as I know) the main focus of Tibetan practices. But then again, it most certainly differs from person to person and giving a general consensus on this question is pretty much impossible. I think if one focuses less of the ‘self-deceiving’ aspect of Tulpae, and more on looking for new, creative, and fun ways of interacting with them, Things Actually Happen.

 

Okay, we’re at about English paper-length, so let’s finish in style

 

In Conclusion, everything about Tulpas is a matter of perspective. Nothing works for everyone and everything works for someone. We don’t all know what Tulpae ‘should’ be, we just know what we we’ve read, experienced, and heard about. Believing that everything you randomly think is your Tulpa sending you an encoded signal could be the worst thing in the world for some people, and then again, it could be the spark needed to break through someone’s mental blockade against alien thoughts.--

 

And then Viceroy. That is a response to take to heart, thanks for that. It also breaks the things I had previously typed here, which is a good thing since now I can’t say I believe them.

 

--Let me just throw this out there on the topic of the questionable, ”if you think you're doing it right, then you're doing it right” thing. I don’t believe in that either, but I do think that “If you believe it, your tulpa can achieve it,” because, at the very least, it will hopefully get them to try (See previous child analogy).

 

Also, one other thing I’d like to say (because at this point what else am I going to do tonight?),

 

Anyway, she cannot think separately from me. At all.[...]This has happened virtually every single time, and when it hasn't, it's obvious that she's struggling and trying to manufacture memories on the spot.

 

Okay, here’s something I want to say, a penny for your thoughts. I think that the main thing Tulpae truly need to work on is independent thinking, what some call parallel processing. Perhaps, when Irish and FAQ_Man yapped away at their supposedly mute Tulpae (No disrespect intended, I understand why they did what they did), those Tulpae had to figure out how to think for themselves and break through to their hosts all on their own, resulting in a fully independent and ‘alien’ consciousness at the start of vocality. If that is true, then our current, ‘liberal’, viewpoint of host-deafness and such, and our motivated attempts to breach through the wall protecting us from insanity ourselves, do not give our tulpae anywhere near the time needed to develop full independent thought. They rely pretty much entirely on our own thoughts to speak and voice opinions yet are still undeniably /there/. Basically, our tulpae exist, but have absolutely no experience thinking on their own. As far as they can tell, they exist only when you’re thinking about them (To varying degrees and all that, but that is the essence of the problem).

 

If that’s true, then what we, the people who’ve tried and failed to embrace the newage Tulpalogic by creating and reaching out to our mental companions so soon, should work on is helping our Tulpae help themselves. Here is my own experience at practicing this: I’ve played chess, rather successfully, with two of my Tulpae, and those times were far different from idly attempting to hold conversations with them (I should note that I used a physical board both times, and plan to continue doing so to help imposition). We attempted the recent flash animation ball-game-test-thing with pretty poor results across the board no matter which way we tried it (It is located in the research board), and it felt more like they were just throwing a random count at me rather than actively trying to partake in the test. I have also taken to asking them what they are thinking about, and if they weren’t, telling them to try (Just today, so I cannot give results one way or the other. But logically, it could help them gain self awareness of their own thoughts so they aren’t simply following mine).

 

At first we (The community) believed (It seems, in general, not starting a flame war or anything) that the Host was supposed to be able do the vast majority of the work in this process by devoting a boatload of time and mental concentration into creating the Tulpa from the ground up. Now we (generally) say that Tulpae are born pretty much fully sentient and formed, and it is we who are blind and deaf and must work to sense them. Both sides can yield valid results, but, as with all things in this realm of the mind, nothing works for everyone. So, in closing (For real this time, we hope), I think the key to achieving whatever levels of tulpamagic those who came before us possessed lies not in blind belief, but active work on the Tulpa’s /and/ Host’s parts. The most important, or at least, a pretty important, part of the process for us is to work /with/ our Tulpae to develop independent thought. This isn’t a project you can work on solo, you have to get your newfound friend (Or what-relationship-have-you), to work with you so you can help them help themselves to help us all.

 

~Spook Out, Thank God

(Or whatever higher power you believe in, or heck, just thank [me].)

Written with help from James[], Claire//, and Kate\\.