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Another "is it sentient" question


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So I saw a question on the sub-reddit and I'm actually curious for myself because I'm having the exact same issue. I'll copy and paste the question.

 


Hi, some of you might remember seeing me off and on but I was developing a tulpa. It's been a good couple months now.

I don't understand what my tulpa's response is supposed to... feel like?

Let me try to explain it this way.

Most of us can make a mental character, and pretend its sentient. If your imagination is active enough, it can respond with your intent, but you don't control its words.

That's still happening to me.

She can't talk to me until I bring her to mind.

When we do talk, it just feels like that normal example. I mean it's still pretty cool. If I'm an emotional mess, 'she' can offer rational thought to snap me out of it. So that's neat, but I tested that concept and I can make up a character right now who would automatically do that too so long as I intend to interact with it.

Am I doing this wrong? It doesn't feel as amazing as people describe it to be. It seems kinda fake, is she just not sentient yet or is this how it's supposed to be?

Thanks, I hope your insights can help me work through this.


Not sure how satisfied OP was with the comments but personally I'm not satisfied which is why I'm here.

 

I made a tulpa a few months back, so a bit longer than him or her.

 

I have the same issue OP is talking about. My tulpa can talk, object, voice opinions, state rational thought when I cannot, etc.

 

But it doesn't feel real.

 

It just feels like a semi-autonomous thought response.

 

So if I'm busy like I am now, my tulpa can't speak unless I put some type of attention on her. A passive awareness of her existence if you will.

 

Some comments said "try asking your tulpa to surprise you". So I thought I would try that myself.

 

Every time I ask that I get some weird, creepy, horror image in my head along with a teasing thought (playful). If that is my tulpa, she sure has a twisted sense of humor.

 

Anyway, what do you think?

 

Do I have a tulpa or is it just my imagination?

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y'know when something is really obvious to you but not to someone else and you try and explain it but you probably make the answer seem like a lot less big of a deal than it is to them?

this is literally labeled "Quick reply for not parroting" in our list of reference posts lol but it's got your answer

 

Even if it seems like it might be you sometimes, that doesn't really matter, because your brain is still learning how to be your tulpa instead of just you basically. Like, your tulpa can sound like you/feel like you're influencing them at first because your brain only knows how to do you, but by treating your tulpa like another person in your head and constantly reinforcing that their thoughts are coming from "someone else", you teach your brain to do that, and over time they'll stop sounding/feeling like you at all until they feel like a totally different person!

 

eventually they will sound totally completely different, unexpected etc.etc.! Buuuut if you're not thinking your way to that point anymore you might get stuck with a not so real sounding tulpa I guess. Buuuuut... worrying about if they're "there or not" isn't a relevant thing to worry about, cus it doesn't help in tulpa making at all if that makes sense. If my tiny reply explained it well enough!

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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Whether or not the responses are actually coming from a developed tulpa doesn't matter, the point is to treat these potential responses as if they're "real" and to not think too much about the end product. It's a gradual process (the tulpa becoming sentient/independent) and maybe what you wouldn't consider to be real right now would've felt very alien to you months ago. Assuming that you're consistently interacting with your tulpa, you're not doing anything wrong and you don't need to feel worried about the direction you're headed in. What I'd recommend doing is reading through the progress reports board to find people that felt similarly within the first few months and see how things slowly changed over time - it's of course not recommended to compare yourself to others but there's nothing wrong with a little affirmation here and there.

 

 

While a few people have apparently alleviated doubts through the "surprise me" trick it's very easy for your mind to fill in the blanks when you give it a simple task like that - you don't need a tulpa to do this and it can even be consistent. But if it feels to you like it aligns with your tulpa's personality or whatever, good on you.

 

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"this doesn't feel real' feeling/thought may also be an artifact of social/cultural expectations. You have been taught your entire life that this isn't real, people don't do this. Most people tend to talk their kids out of 'imaginary friend' phase of existence. We, society, make fun of that in movies; we make fun other each other for doing that! and sometimes even make the invisible friend thing a creepy tangent to the beginning of a horror movie. (Potential explanation for the horror flash scene in your head with the 'haha just kidding note attached? (if that isn't evidence for social fact, I don't know what is.) We, society, especially Western, more especially America, have some fairly harsh attitudes towards anything resembling a mental illness. People with mental illnesses are shunned. People with a diagnosis of schizophrenia have the worst social outcomes in the US than in any other culture, which is absolutely bizarre when you consider 'we' think of ourselves as being the most enlightened and the most compassionate when it comes to medicine and care. We suck at care. And so, if you are engaging something that resembles something that is taboo, well, there are social consequences. Guilt, shame, denial... Even today, whether your paradigm allows for paranormal or not, the general social discourse for anything spiritual, spooky, even UFO's, it gets squashed. If you think about it, even the discussions of dreams is still kind of fringe, because most people say 'it's just a dream,' which pretty much boxes that as irrelevant in terms of normal discourse. I personally suspect most people want to keep tulpamancy within the psychological explanation because it has a greater chance of having plausible validity; metaphysical explanations tend to get shunned by the popular vote.

 

And so, you're engaging in this really neat activity which has some inexplicable results. You are what, 19 years old? You have 19 years worth of programing that this is not real, this is not acceptable, and very few outlets where you can even discuss it within a hypothetical framework. We are today where Bob Monroe was when he first started exploring astral projection in the 60's. He took that further than any, trying to make a science of it, and it's still kind of fringe. Now, if you scheduled an appointment with Carl Jung, a hundred years ago, he would have invited you in and the two of you would have explored this and took it as far as you can go. You have Carl Jung as your advocate, I suspect you will have a great deal less resistance. Every time you think, oh, this isn't real, well, that, my friend, is evidence for cultural programming. I am not saying cultural programming is bad, I am just saying you're hitting up against the walls of your paradigm. It's part of your landscape and part of who you are, and maybe you needed that scaffolding to get you to where you needed to be to even attempt something as outlandish as tulpamancy. So, don't beat the programming or the perspective. It's just referential points on a map. You're doing psychic brain surgery without a license. There is another point of resistance. Our culture requires people licensed and expert to have any valid opinion on a subject; self pointed experts don't get to say 'this is real,' right?

 

If we just stuck to the psychological paradigm, that all personalities are simply artificial constructs, even our own, then the thing we are experiencing is no less wondrous. So, you created a personality/program that has it's own unique filters. You ask a question, the answer should be biased per the filter it was run through. Human brain is a personality emulator, and it has contained within it every personality we have encountered, plus any personality we can imagine it. We do that for consistency. You're watching Star Trek, and suddenly Captain Kirk is stoic and logical and you would be like, that's not Kirk, that's Spock. What just happened?! You create a tulpa, you are now utilizing your brain-personality emulator in a very organized, precise manner, to a degree of perfection that most people don't. Seriously, most people don't use their brain as if it were a computer and that it has programmable features and outputs, we just assume we are it and go about our daily programming. Society may need that. You can't have a patriotism if everyone realizes that nationalism is a byproduct of the state you were born into. Some of us do our normalized' programmming less perfectly, and those folks usually end up getting help because their programing is considered maladaptive. It was adaptive within the family of origin, but in the broader social context, less adaptive. It's as if they are running an outdated windows program, where the rest of society had updates, but they don't even know they have Microsoft running because they don't follow computer stuff. You, Sir, have taken your brain into your own hands, you have deciphered the software, you are tinkering with the programs. Very taboo. But yay you! Your exploring. So, it doesn't feel real sometimes. That's okay. Keep tinkering. Keep exploring. You are unlocking future doors of potential. :)

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