Assistance needed

[KarlYoshimura]

Hello all.

 

I'm not really sure how to approach this situation, so please bear with me.

 

I'm rather close to a tulpa I know, yet her mental state has declined significantly over the several years I've known her. The nature of her existence seems to be the core of the matter, as she is very depressed by not having her own physical body, the way her wonderland functions, et cetera.

 

My tulpa and I have tried to help her, yet it seems all we can do is provide friendly company. We love her very much, and it tears us to pieces when we're told about how she feels. Is there anything we could do to help her?

[Bikko]

I can't help you with anything about real tulpamancy, but maybe a philosophical approach could help your tulpa.

In other words, make your tulpa try to read Berkeley, Plato or the gnostics.

It could make not having a physical body a trivial matter.

[Tewi]

Don't think they're talking about their tulpa, but one they know.

 

If the problem is just literally that they don't have a body, I suppose there's not much you can do. But otherwise, there are many ways in which tulpas can interact with the world. Switching, possession, or even just imposition can help with that a lot, but even those aren't necessary. As little as having your host proxy for you, or just even influencing them to interact with the world in a way you'd want to, can have an effect on the world. A 'popular' user here is a tulpa who only is proxied (host says what she wants), but interacts with the world in a ton of ways. Heck, she donates to charities. Let alone has a huge circle of friends that know more or less what she is and still treat her like a person.

 

We personally switch, and I'd say that's about as much freedom as a tulpa can ever get. You don't own the body per se, it's still not "your life". But you can share the body, and share the life. Although our host is by far most active, I'd still say that's how it is for us. We still get to do a lot of things we'd like to do, and for things that are impossible to do without having our own bodies, we just don't worry about. There's no sense in worrying about things you can't change. Focus on what you can.

[KarlYoshimura]

@ Bikko: I'm unsure what philosophical ramifications would be able to suppress the want to live and function like a physically tangible human being. How would the philosophies espoused by your recommended authors and religious texts explain the triviality of material reality?

 

@ Tewi: I'm aware of techniques like switching, possession et cetera, but it's not exactly her cup of tea. We talk with her via proxy as much as possible, and are probably two of the several people she even converses with. We try to get her involved and cheer her up, but to no avail.

 

What pains me the most about this scenario is the very real possibility of her dissolving herself, or just fading away from refusing to subsist as a tulpa would. It's a real catch-22...if she is suffering so badly, would it be merciful and considerate to respect such a decision? We never want to give up on her, because that's the absolute last thing a person should do to someone else who is hurting. At the same time, I can't help but feel partially responsible for what she continues to feel, as our and her host's desire for her to be healthy and safe effectively means she remains in a place that's like a prison.

[Bikko]

@I'm unsure what philosophical ramifications would be able to suppress the want to live and function like a physically tangible human being. How would the philosophies espoused by your recommended authors and religious texts explain the triviality of material reality?

 

Well, it's not easy to give a short answer, you should really try to read them to see how it works.

In platonism the material it's less real than the ideal. According to gnostics it's not only less real but essentially corrupted, false and evil.

Berkeley approach it's really original. It's also easy and fun to read ("Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous" it's all you need) and it can be really mindblowing if you can catch the idea. Also it would make all the problem disappear if your tulpa gets convinced.

I really think it could help, at least to see different points of view. Or just too see how really different and wise people in human history wouldn't have considered your tulpa to be less complete or perfect than any other human.

[Faemon]

Has she perhaps considered reincarnation?

[KarlYoshimura]

@Bikko: I am familiar with the Gnostic heresies, yet the person I am trying to console is a dyed-in-the-wool atheist. We have tried asking her if she would ever consider something like prayer, yet she politely denied the prospect. Likewise, she's awful set in a logical course of thinking, sometimes to a fault...yet I'll try out what you prescribe and talk with her about it.

 

@Faemon: again, I highly doubt she would even consider, let alone want, to invest in any religion or idea that teaches some kind of spiritual re-birth.

[Hierophant]

Ask her why she feels she must have a physical body to live a good life.

[KarlYoshimura]

@Hierophant: It would appear that she is deeply wanting of the independence and enrichment that comes with a correct and fully ambulatory body. To be free to the very experiences most persons take for granted, and thereon to make sense of her existence while trying to live a life on her own terms, at least one that isn't rife with the limitations she experiences now.

 

Another facet to this issue is how her para-cosm/wonder-land operates. She states she has "too much control" over what does and does not manifest. I'm not sure if this is a unique condition among tulpas, yet she describes a lack of accurate physics or fluidity that should otherwise remain present: for instance, instead of making clay pots by hand and realistically growing plants in them, the pots and the plants appear instantaneously, fully grown, as soon as the thought of doing so crosses her mind. According to her, she can't amend this effect and we're unsure why her para-cosm functions in this manner.

[Linkzelda]

That’s because there’s a yearning to have the imagination regress substantially at the convenience of emulating something real to her. The whole money doesn’t grow from trees, and because possession/switching seems to be a turn off for them, it’s truly an impasse because they’re stripping themselves away from having an intense experience of having to put things into context with this reality.

 

I highly doubt that it can be so easy to just tell one’s imagination to flick off the insta-spamming of things coming at their beck and call. Our brains are so used to conceptualizing, anticipating, and such to prepare for this reality. So I can only imagine that inwardly, all of those cognitive processes will naturally go pew pew pew pew pew pew. And even if they took great efforts to power down the convenience of the imagination, there’s going to be some nuance that they’re going to pin-point; that extra tick of nuance that throws it off completely for them that will land them back at that dead-end for a genuine experience of mortality, progressiveness instead of instantaneous, and such with life.

 

If it were me, I would utilize that imagination that goes pew pew pewing 4 days as a learning experience to prepare for this reality in context of possession and switching. I did it before with image streaming where I described emulations of real life as a tool for them to start gathering their own “feelness” to something, or wanting to believe they naturally have qualia related to their presumed sentience. And seeing how all gestures and formalities of enduring life seems to be an understood thing with them (the person and tulpa in question; this reflect the rest of this post so no one thinks I'm referring to me and my own), there’s no need to give a speech therapy, I guess.

 

The only thing I can point out is that while they have some degree of intelligence and awareness to speculate about the sheer power the mind has to make things come at their beck and call, that reality that they’re trying to get the extra ticks in to satisfy their worry will make the imagination look like Disney World. A far greater problem, for example, like having to construct personal meaning in a reality that may seem meaningless might have them running back to that imagination because they can have it catered for them. A yearning to have emulations of waking life and yet being restrictive in not using methods to actually put things into context within that reality has to be for some deeper problem within the psyche that even we can’t figure out; a type of question where you piled it over to others without answering it for themselves. Those kinds of questions can be problematic because they end up distracting the individual in question that tranquilizes their worrying temporarily. But once the distraction is gone, it’s back to square one.

 

If there isn’t novelty in wanting to put things into context with this reality via possession, switching, and such, then it’s going to be difficult finding novelty in that imagination that can prepare one for it; where one cannot even refer to their own cognition and mind as their home—a true, existential horror, IMO.