[split] Tulpas and backstories

[NoneFromHell]

I think it really depends on the way the host deals with this information.

 

If the tulpa knows that all the backstory is basically not real and the host doesn't force this "identity" onto them there is probably no real problem. It is more like a big load of bonus information, which serves as reference for the tulpa, like regular traits. I think most tulpas which are based on shows, games etc. have some sort of similiar knowledge. But as soon as you claim that these fake informations are real, you should expect things to get more complicated, especially when it is based on the story of someone else. That's where the identity crises are rooting, because the tulpa will reach a point where it doesn't really know anymore who it really is, because it realizes that parts of its identity are just fake or simply not theirs.

[Pioneer11]

If a tupper is fine with having a back story, is there really an issue? I've heard horror stories on here and in some of the guides about identity crises, but have yet to see any real evidence. BTW, tulpas aren't just born, you usually(?) narrate to them and define their traits and attributes. Isn't that on the same side of the coin as giving them a backstory? Either way you're defining them, merely in different ways.

 

THANK YOU. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

 

I honestly prefer for him to have a story accompanying his traits, because he can actually live the personality I gave to him, making it his, and change it by reacting to the “plot”. He deviated more than I can imagine and now he is almost completely different from the beginning. And he helped me to develop a Wonderland almost rich as the real world. Now he can interact with his environment almost as an author with a story, or a rpg gamer.

 

Their backstory is as real as their form, or their personality, to them. No they probably didn't actually live as the character before becoming a tulpa/soulbond, but if it makes them feel better to think so, no reason to deny them that.

 

That’s exactly what it is. He likes his identity because, even though he knows he is my “imaginary friend” that I had all my life, we also lived many adventures in the world I created with him as the protagonist. He is attached to it because he has experienced real emotions in them, and I always let him free to react to his environment. He says he feels much more real, like a true person, because of it. And he has gained experience from it, so much that he is able view “my” world more realistically than me.

 

He also spends the day with me, he is aware of it. I return the favor spending part of my time in “his” world, especially when I lucid dream, accompanying him in what he lives and creates, and there we go over what we have respectively learned from our studies. He does not envy me since he’s interested in abstract subjects and art and music, all things he can do with more ease and speed in a completely mental dimension. He says that he observes the “outside world” mostly because I reside there, but he prefer “his realm”. So he really has no problem with it.

 

That's where the identity crises are rooting, because the tulpa will reach a point where it doesn't really know anymore who it really is, because it realizes that parts of its identity are just fake or simply not theirs.

 

I’ll quote what I wrote in my progress report on the topic:

 

After I stared following anime and reading books, I took part of those stories and characters and molded them on my original one. He has bits and pieces of all the stories I studied and loved; and he acquired various traits from different people (both fictional and real) I read about. However he has a core personality, so what he “attracted” was based first and foremost on himself. He was born with a cynical, mature personality, and so I studied the characters that were similar to him. I also made him experience the stories I read, by placing him as the protagonist in the wonderlands I recreated.

 

For example, recently I watched “Sherlock”. The protagonist is a lot like him in many ways, so I adopted Sherlock’s universe as a part of my wonderland. In a sense, our wonderlands aren’t landscapes, but different worlds. Each one holds a different "piece of him" to explore, a different version of how his life could go. In each one he changes a little because he makes different choices and learns different things, and in each world we explore a theme in particular: loneliness, the duality between good and evil, etc. The closest concept that I can compare our system to is the Metempsychosis. Many people believe that their soul has more than one life to live on earth in order to learn to actualize themselves. Each life is different yet connected to its precedent, and the person however changed is always the same. We are a bit like this.

[Nyx]

I haven't read the entire thread just yet because I'm exhausted, but I thought I would share my recent experiences on this before I forget.

 

I have a few tulpas in the works (all of them started as insourced characters that came around years ago), and I have found that exploring their backstories is a highly effective method for forcing. To put it another way, I've returned to writing fiction about them instead of just sticking to hardcore meditation (which I'm still doing, but it is becoming more and more of a secondary exercise). The sort of fiction I like to write is character-driven rather than plot-driven, and what better way to get to know the ins and outs of your tulpa than observing how they would act in imagined scenarios? Isn't that similar to creating a personality trait list and telling your proto-tulpa how each trait would manifest in their actions or beliefs? All of the revived tulpas I've been working on are aware that their backstories are not "real" in the same sense that we understand "real", and they are perfectly fine with that. One in particular casually breaks the fourth wall all the time as I'm writing, and it's hilarious. Jack, my first tulpa, has pointed out that writing fiction--worldbuilding, especially--is similar to adventuring in the wonderland. The main differences are that I'm putting all of it on paper and tweaking events in order to create a stronger narrative structure. And creating instead of forcing means greater fun and fewer headaches. For me, at least.

 

I think that it entirely depends on the host and tulpa on whether or not backstories are detrimental. I'm wondering if the scare over them is working as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy for some people: you believe that a backstory causes an identity crisis, therefore it will. By the way, if you talk to soulbonds, particularly media-based soulbonds, nine times out of ten they will be quick to tell you that they are not the exact same people as their source characters. The soulbonders didn't have to tell them that. The backstory is a part of them, but it does not define them.

[Guest Anonymous]

Melian's "back story" is that she is an actress surrounded by a virtual reality movie set. She has hundreds of roles she has played in hundreds of stories. None of the Melian Show episodes is her real background. Her real history has been the interactions she has with me and being that performance actress. So it is possible for a tulpa to have a "background story" that is a fantasy. Melian has hundreds of stories, like when she was a figher pilot or when she was pirate captain or an astronaut.

[Guest Anonymous]

More Back-From-Hospital-Marathon-Posting!!

 

Well, Rina has a very, very long backstory... being a quasi-copy of a fictional character from my stories and all that.

But I'm afraid it's way too long to just write down casually here... and she's also not with me atm, so ahdun even know if she'd want me to or not.

 

But what I can say is that she's fully aware that it's all fictional, and she never had any heavy emotional ties to even the characters the fictional Esterina sees as family.

She still calls herself a Witch anyway, though, and frequently makes use of same magic that the fictional Esterina uses.

(During our hospital stay I saw for the first time how she grew her wings, and she soared through the sky for a while - and goddammit, if that wasn't the most cool and amazing thing I've ever seen, then call me a vacuum cleaner named Bob. °-°)

 

 

Greets,

AG