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Tulpamancy description for singlets / Telling your friends you have a tulpa


WalkInHost

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Hey-hey! I wrote this article when I wanted my friends to meet my tulpa not long ago. It went smoothly and I shared it with few other systems who found it of a great help too. So I decided to share this with wider audience. Hope it can help you too! Suggestions and comments are appreciated.

 

Link to Google Docs. Russian translation.

 

The purpose of this article is to give singlet friends and curious people a thorough explanation of what tulpamancy and plurality as a whole is, how it feels and experienced from the inside. Hope it can help plural people explain to their friends what they go through. As the author is a tulpamancer, it’s mostly tulpa-based, but might be useful for other system types as well.

 

Disclaimer: plural experiences are vastly different for each system. This article reflects views of the author based on her own experience and interactions with people she met.

 

## Tulpa? Plurality? System? What’s all that?

That might be shocking for you to learn, but not all people are alone in their heads. And I don’t mean it in a sense that they hear voices or see things, I mean literally, just like stories of possession in fiction go: they might have another people in their head, that can take control over their body or just talk with them, the experiences are different. This state of the head and mind is called “plurality” and plural people are generally referred as “systems”, because they’re basically comprised of a few people — headmates.

 

There is a lot of different terminology for system types, based on it’s origin, separation level, hierarchy, amount of headmates etc, but here we will only touch it’s origin. Not everyone agrees on this terms, so don’t be surprised if you see different definitions.

 

Plurality can be caused by trauma, mostly the case for DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly MPD — Multiple Personality Disorder), those are called traumagenic. Some can be that way from the start or develop naturally over time — endogenic. Tulpamancy system is the one where headmates were created by direct will and effort. There are some other types and some system have combined origin, but those are the main ones we will touch here.

 

# So it’s a mental disorder?

No, plurality in itself is not a disorder. There are some disorders that cause plurality to develop, like DID, DDNOS (Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified), maybe some others. But in most cases plurality itself doesn’t fit a disorder criteria — it’s not inherently harmful or cause trouble, most of the time in listed cases the real cause of troubles are other symptoms, like dissociation or cPTSD.

 

Yes, having other people in your head can cause a lot of problems. But there are ways to coexist peacefully and for benefit of each headmate and the system as a whole. This is called “healthy plurality”.

 

Of course, there are still stigmas from society and modern psychology views it as disorder that has to be treated. But let’s not forget that merely less than 50 years ago the same attitude was towards gay people. If it doesn’t cause harm to the person and people around them and they don’t want it to change — it’s not a disorder.

 

# Is it even real? Can brain do that?

There are different psychological and neurological explanation of how brains can host multiple people at the same time, from designated neurons to each headmate (with most of the brain shared, of course) to just separating data. Some claim there is no plurality at all and it’s all a self-delusion and a mind-trick.

 

Sadly, there are not enough studies of plurality to say something clearly and definitely. Some studies claim that alters (name for headmates in some systems) have very distinct brain wave patterns, brain activity and behavior from each other for one person to simulate this ([1]). But generally it’s a subjective thing that can be viewed only from inside, much like your own consciousness — you assume everyone has it, because you can observe your own, but there is no solid reason to claim that every consciousness works the same way as yours.

 

So basically it comes down to: why not? Brain is an incredibly complex thing and we are just coming closer to grasping how parts of it work. We yet to find the one spot where personality/sentience/consciousness stored and to prove how many of these the brain can handle. But so far we have to accept what history tells us: there are millions of people experiencing plurality in some form, from just having nameless advisors that guide them through life to distinct alters that can switch involuntarily and have separate memories.

 

# Okay, what about tulpas?

As was said earlier, a tulpa is a headmate that was created by will and effort. Usually, a singlet tulpamancer decides they don’t want to be alone in their head anymore and over time train their brain to designate resources and create another consciousness to coexist near their own. Sometimes other systems can decide to add new headmates for some reason, or a tulpamancer with one or more tulpas wants to make more, but that’s out of scope.

 

It’s a gradual process and usually takes a lot of time and effort to reach desired levels. But usually after some point a singlet becomes a system of tulpamancy origin hosting two or more people, with one of them being an original (usually referred as host) and the other — a tulpa. Each of them continues to develop as all humans do, finding their own quirks, hobbies, likes and dislikes, forming and developing their character. And interacting with each other, of course — what’s the point of creating a headmate if you can’t chat with them? :)

 

# But the Internet says…

Okay, the Internet says a lot of things about tulpas. Not all of them true and some are vastly exaggerated. Let’s try to clear some of them.

 

Tulpas are not a hoax. What you will often see is a claim that tulpamancers are faking it to get an attention. Some, of course, do. But the tulpa phenomenon in itself is very real. What confuses the most is that tulpas are fairly new thing in the internet — they emerged on 4chan only around 2011 and clearly had a lot of controversy. But the idea is not at all new: starting from Buddhist monks, who created the word “tulpa”, authors over the history creating too real meta-aware character that left “stuck” in their head and of course people with DID and other endogenic systems — the idea of plurality was with humanity for a very long time and change with our views on personality and consciousness.

 

So there is no logic to accepting phenomenon of plurality as a whole, but denying an ability of a person to become plural with direct effort. Our brain is a complex and flexible organ, if it can block memories from one alter to be accessed by another in case of trauma system and produce dreams and hallucinations that feel and perceived as real, it can sure as well do this too. At least that’s what seems logical to assume from my point of view, obviously we need more research :)

 

You can talk to real people with tulpas, you can even talk to tulpas themselves! And see for yourself. Maybe some of your friends are tulpamancers or plural (someone sent you this article after all ;).

 

Tulpas are not a mental disorder. I covered it above: if it doesn’t cause your or others any trouble, it does not qualify as a disorder or illness.

 

Tulpas are not schizophrenia. That’s the same as the last one, but people usually claim that seeing and hearing things that are not physically there is a schizophrenia. Well, it’s not. First, schizophrenia has genetic origins ([2]) and can’t be developed by your will. Second, when you have a headmate, in most cases, you know for sure what’s produced from inside of your head and what is not, which is not the case for schizophrenia. Also it’s a more complex disorder than just hallucinating things, you may want to read about it yourself if you’re curious.

 

Tulpas are not necessarily hallucinations. Starting from people who wanted to have a pony friend, tulpas are seen as live hallucinations that you can see as if you’re on some drug, but who live with you all the time and have a mind of their own.

 

This is called imposition. But the imposition is not a tulp, it’s a way to perceive them and interact with them. And no matter how fun does it sound, it’s literally the hardest technique in tulpamancy. Most never reach it because it’s too hard or they just don’t bother. Depending on your alignment, it’s estimated that you need no less than a year of training to be able to actually see tulpa clearly over the real world (or as plural people call it, the meatspace).

 

But tulpas often do have a form, either imagined by host or later changed by themselves to whatever they like. Usually a tulpamancer can “interact” with it in the wonderland (mindspace) — a dream-like world often perceived with closed eyes, where you and your headmates are in control. Have you seen Sherlock? The Mind Palace from it is basically a wonderland. Yes, we know it sounds like an escape from reality. And some people do spend unhealthy amount of time there… but not even most of them; usually it’s a useful tool to create a tulpa or for escaping boredom. You can see it as reading a book, watching a movie or just roleplaying with your friends to have some fun.

 

Tulpas can control your body, but it’s complicated. Unless you’re naturally dissociative, you and your tulpa will have to spend time and training for them to be able to control the body by their will. There is no way a young tulpa can do it and cause you any harm.

 

Tulpas can’t do magic with your mind. Well, unless you view tulpas themselves as a mind magic. But basically there is no thing you can do with your mind with tulpas that you can’t do without one (except having a tulpa ofc). They can’t magically be better at something you are not — they will have to train the same way you would, so you just can do it yourself. They don’t have omnipotent access to your subconsciousness, and if some do — hosts usually can do it themselves or learn to do it themselves. They can’t retrieve memories you forgot. If they can be remembered, you can do it too, just need to find the right way, brain does not store everything that happens with you and every picture you’ve seen and every book you’ve read ([3]), there is no solid proofs of people being able to do it and tulpa won’t help you.

 

You might get better at multitasking though. It is not proven that the brain is capable of having two focus points at the same time, usually in multitasking environment it switches context between tasks with a lot more mistakes made and less accuracy. But having a tulpa is an exercise of multitasking in itself, so you might get better with it on your own, or together when you solve problems in parallel (no you won’t have double the brain power…). Again, you can train it without a tulpa.

 

Hosts and tulpas are not different. One came first and has a deeper connection with the body and mind, but over time the differences disappear, you learn to switch and host can basically become a tulpa with the tulpa taking their place. That’s why the word “host” is a bit ambiguous.

 

Tulpas are not dangerous. Unlike trauma or endogenous systems, it’s really hard to accidentally create a malicious tulpa. In most but anecdotal cases it’s in both host’s and tulpa’s interest to live in harmony and care about each other and the system as a whole.

 

Tulpas can live without your attention. On the start, you’re the one training your mind to separate itself, so you need a lot of effort to sustain the tulpa, you need to pay attention to them and think about them for them to be active. But over time it’s less and less the case with some systems reaching parallel presence and thinking fairly quickly.

 

You cannot necessarily kill a tulpa if you decide you don’t want to have them around. That’s one of the most asked questions… And usually the answer is something like “just stop paying attention to them and they will dissipate over time”. First, it doesn’t work like this if tulpa developed enough to sustain themselves without your effort. Second, no one wants to die, it will be painful for everyone. Third, you probably will be left with a trauma even if you succeed. So yes, it’s a life-long commitment. Which brings us to the next question...

 

# Why would you do this?

Obviously, all systems except tulpamancers don’t have much choice — they’re either that way naturally or become that way against their will.

 

But for creating a tulpa there can be multiple reasons, and it’s important that the person knows and has evaluated the reasons behind this before doing it. Having a tulpa, depending on your relationships with them, can complicate your life in various ways, so you better have a good reason. Which doesn’t stop people from doing it for reasons like curiosity and boredom. Some do it because they’re lonely or to cope with their problems or just to have a life companion they want to share life with!

 

# How does it feel to have a tulpa?

The experience of having a headmate is vastly different from system to system, so I can try to speak for us — I and my tulpa. who’s name I will drop for purpose of anonymity, sorry.

 

Most of the time it’s the same as always having an another person nearby, but with whom you can communicate telepathically. Sometimes thoughts just come to your mind and they have a clear owner that is not you. Doing it two-way a dialog happen s. Well, obviously since we share one head and one body, we also have to account for desires of each other. Basically, having a girlfriend that is always with you :)

 

From time to time after some training, she can control the body when we both agree on it, to play video games or type text in online chat to talk with her or our friends. We are working on controlling full body for longer times, but so far there has not been much need for it.

 

Sometimes she asks me to type or say something to other people on her behalf and sometimes indirectly control hands to type it herself (especially in long conversations). She bitches about me doing some stupid things or sometimes acts childish herself wanting to stay up all night to finish anime.

 

Sometimes we discuss things with each other, think about existential topics, debate whether we should buy a TV, or play video games together or in turns. We don’t have a wonderland because I was too lazy to create it, she is vaguely projected over the real world, but not all the time and not clear — as i mentioned, imposition is a hard thing to do, so we use presense imposition. Basically, imagine you have a person behind your back — you know it because you just turned around from them. You know they’re there, you can even try to imagine each detail on them and think what they do. It basically feels that way, with part of it controlled by her will and part of it controlled by the brain’s unconscious desire to have a place for everything - I can’t see her directly, but I know what she does, where she is and how she looks. But that’s not very important, since she obviously can’t interact with the world and no matter her position we share the same feelings.

 

Well, sometimes it’s very weird :D

 

# How does it feel to be a tulpa?

That’s an interesting question! But it has a boring answer — not much different from being you.

 

If the system arrangement allows sharing memories (which most tulpamancy systems do), a tulpa knows everything you know. Later, they will be able to form memories separate from you, but since you both experience pretty much the same events the event memories would be shared. What really is separated for most systems I met is how those events are viewed. For example, my tulpa doesn’t like Bullet For My Valentine and was bored at their concert. But I had a blast, since it’s a band I have a huge history with.

 

We sometimes rewatch movies or anime together that I’ve previously watched alone. Even if she can recall their plot from my memory if she tries, she doesn’t have an opinion about them until she watches it herself.

 

One of the differences for us -- it’s hard to be bored as a tulpa. Since brains have a limited capacity for attention, if one is occupying it, another can be “inactive” in a state when they don’t directly “experience” what is going on and so can’t be bored by it. For example when I’m deep in work.

 

# Hope it helps!

I tried to cover most of the topic of what tulpas are and how they feel. There are different views on each of those questions, so this article represents only my experience and my views.

 

My goal was to give you an idea for understanding us, but I might have went out of my way and created a pretty big article? Hope you didn’t get bored :D

 

By anonymous host and

Her tulpa. Thanks to Tulpa001 for editing.

Leave your suggestions in the comments!

 

Copyleft: Public domain

Feel free to distribute or cite or make your derivatives

Or whatever. Links here are appreciated.

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Hmm... Some of the information here is inaccurate to some degree, but otherwise, I like this! Inaccurate info being that malicious tulpas cannot exist, they can very easily if they are mistreated or if the host handles Tulpamancy improperly. An example of a summoned tulpa gone wrong: https://windiiestorm.wixsite.com/tulpamancyblog/my-terrifying-experience

 

The host and tulpa can have different abilities from each other that one does not have-- especially fusions like my friend's fusion being able to think quickly, notice details better, and has a random strength buff that makes him stronger than both the host and tulpa. This is more common in fusions than switched in tulpas in terms of having more abilities, but tulpas that are switched in can have other abilities or perform certain tasks better than the host, other tulpas, or fusions.

 

There are specific types of tulpas that can switch with the host while being incredibly young, my own what I call natural tulpa, Azide was able to switch with me within the first week I discovered him and was able to possess perfectly fine, even better than my summoned tulpa, Arcanus. Natural tulpas being off-shoot personalities except with a form, and can be created in a similar way to alters, but can also be made in different ways such as the host experiencing an intense, usually negative emotion or mix of emotions for a prolonged amount of time. I could go on for ages about natural tulpas and how they function differently than summoned tulpas, but that is not my point.

 

Oh, and a tulpa would eventually go dormant if ignored for long enough or forcefully put into dormancy, proof of that being one of my friends having to overpower a seven-year-old natural tulpa that was trying to take over his body. However, it would be incredibly difficult, as we all know that a tulpa is harder and harder to go dormant as time goes on.

 

And one final thing, it can be very different being a tulpa if you change forms as well while being in tulpa form instead of being a human. An example of this is me going into my Dragon form while switched or fused, and I can go out and fly above my mother's car while whoever's in control sits in the car, being able to do things you wouldn't normally be able to do such as sleeping in a royal bed you spawned in replacement for your old one, or being able to eat any food you want without having to know imposition to do so. It really depends on your creativity, but I just wanted to add my two cents on that.

 

...Anyway, I just wanted to point those out since barely anyone knows of what the majority of what I said was like fusions, natural tulpas, and whatever else may be unfamiliar to others. Don't take any of this the wrong way, I just felt like pointing a few things out as constructive criticism. Oh, and if you have any questions about what I said, you can just ask me if you'd like.

 

Hi, I like reading guides.

I also write guides; check out my guide here:
Tulpamancy: Guide into the Strange and Wonderful

 

authorthingy(galaxysandhorizontal).png.63180e0a60be1f3e36943e24d1a92189.png

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Eveecraft, thanks for pointing stuff out, but it doesn't contradict to what I wrote. As I said, plural experience is different for everyone, so I told my story and added some "average" from people I interacted with.

 

If you don't mind, I'd love to answer on some topics in your post, not to argue with you, but for conversation's sake.

 

Yes, tulpas can have different abilities than hosts or other tulpas in the system. My point was that if host didn't have a tulpa, they could've learned those abilities anyway. If someone in the system can do it - the other might learn.

 

Obviously some can switch early on, the tulpamancy learning curve is super-weird and subjective/personal :)

 

Yeah, you can kill/knock off a tulpa, but it might be very hard. I specifically said that, because some old guides and internet myths say that if you just ignore them, they will disappear. In reality tho, it might be a few magnitudes harder...

 

> And one final thing, it can be very different being a tulpa if you change forms as well while being in tulpa form instead of being a human.

Oh well, as a host I can do it to *shrugs* :D It's obviously a different experience, but it doesn't have to be ;)

 

Thanks for expanding the view, I'd add something of it in the article, but it's sort of already big enough for people to be lazy to read it :D

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Yeah, okay, I see now. There's already a book's length Tulpamancy guide, so I can see why you don't wanna make your post too long. Someone can get heat or cold resistance through training, but I've noticed that switching or fusions can yield the same results without extensive training. There's just a ridiculous amount of things to discuss and a lot of incorrect information that could accidentally be spread.

 

Relating to the topic of this submission, I actually switched in front of my best friend today, and he was surprisingly relaxed about it. Well, he does have two tulpas of his own just like me-- just that him and his tulpas aren't into switching. I actually haven't read into the term and concept of plurality, actually, and I do believe this is the first article I've read about it actually.

 

Hi, I like reading guides.

I also write guides; check out my guide here:
Tulpamancy: Guide into the Strange and Wonderful

 

authorthingy(galaxysandhorizontal).png.63180e0a60be1f3e36943e24d1a92189.png

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Approved for articles (on behalf of my host... does anybody actually care if I review guides instead of her? I don't think they would.)

 💡 The Felights 💡 https://felight.carrd.co/  💡

🪐 Cosmicals: 🔥 Apollo Fire the Sun God (12/3/16) Piano Soul the Star Man (1/26/17)

🐉 Mythicals: ☁️ Indigo Blue the Sky Dragon (10/2/17), 🦑 Gelato Sweet the Sea Monster (12/11/22)

🦇 Nycticals:  Dynamo Lux the Shock Rocker (3/3/17), 🎸 Radio Hiss the Song Demon (2/8/00)

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