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The Inner Workings of How a Tulpa is Formed - My Theory


Abvieon

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This community definitely knows how to create a tulpa. However, the hidden mechanisms behind the forming of that second voice in your head are fuzzy, muddled, and largely unknown. Why is is that the forcing methods commonly used by the community result in successfully creating a tulpa? How does a mind form in the brain in the first place? I will attempt to answer these questions with a theory of my own. This will be a somewhat long read, but I encourage you to stick with it until the end as I have thought about this theory for a long time and am very happy with what I have come up with. You probably won't be disappointed.

 

I believe that tulpas are conscious beings, in the same way that you are. They are full fledged, separate people who just happen to share a brain with someone else. I do not see them as a part or extension of the host's mind. Because of this, there is almost no difference in what a host is and what a tulpa is. A host might see themselves as their body, or brain. This isn't necessarily true. The thing that is "you" is your consciousness. You are nothing more than the totality of your experience, and consciousness is experience. If you are not experiencing or observing anything, you are not conscious, meaning you simply do not exist until you regain consciousness. You are a consciousness inhabiting a brain and body, rather than being your brain or body. Now, what is a tulpa? Another consciousness in that same brain. This means that the basic aspects of existence are the same between a host and tulpa. This includes the manner in which a host and tulpa is formed. A host and tulpa do form in different circumstances, but these different circumstances are different ways of doing the same thing.

 

Before I go on I would like to make it clear that thinking and consciousness are not the same thing. You do not have to be thinking to be conscious. Experience and observation does not require thinking - it is simply taking in information.

 

Now, how does consciousness form in the first place? What creates it, and where does it come from? I believe that consciousness is heavily tied to sensory input. I see consciousness as a tool that is used to effectively take in and organize outside information coming in from the senses. In fact, I see sensory input as being the very thing that creates consciousness. The brain responds to sensory input by automatically and naturally creating consciousness as a way to effectively take in that input. When you are newly born, you aren't quite conscious yet. Your body runs on a sort of autopilot. Through time, as your body takes in sensory input, a consciousness starts to form in response to that sensory input. It gradually gets stronger and more solidified, and is most likely fully "there" by the time you are a toddler. Without sensory input, a consciousness would never form in your brain.

 

Once there is a consciousness that has been established within a brain, all sensory input will by default flow to and be taken in by that singular consciousness. A consciousness can also be described as a sort of "hub", or "observation point". Normally, there isn't any need for more than one hub in the brain, and under normal conditions a secondary hub will never develop - because all input automatically flows to the hub that already exists. This is why most people are singlets. However, one can purposefully create a second hub by doing certain things. A tulpa is simply a secondary hub.

 

As implied before, if all sensory information is flowing into one hub, there will be no room for another hub to develop. The key to creating a tulpa is to redirect some of that input out into "nothingness" - and a second hub will form around that input you are throwing around. Because it is not flowing into the hub that is you, it will force your brain to create another hub to take in that input. The brain is very good at automatically creating consciousness. It will do so very naturally with surprisingly little effort. If you direct input to somewhere other than yourself, the brain will do the rest of the work for you. The brain sees input being thrown around without being absorbed into a hub as unusual, strange, and not quite right, so it will automatically create a new hub to take in that input.

 

When you create a tulpa, one of the first things you will do is create the impression that there is somebody other than yourself in your brain. This creates the initial 'point' for input to flow towards. At first, it is nothingness, but provides somewhere for the input to go. Without creating this 'point' all input will continue to flow towards yourself. This is why talking to oneself doesn't create a tulpa - you're still directing the talking at yourself. Now, what is this sensory input I keep talking about as it applies to creating a tulpa? It is the attention and talking you direct towards your tulpa. This counts as a form of sensory input.

 

Tulpa creation methods used by the tulpa community are doing just this, and that is why these methods work. This is also why narration is by far the most important aspect of creating a tulpa - because narration is the very act of making input flow towards this new point you have created. All tulpa creation methods, as varied as they may seem, all break down to this act of throwing input out towards something you label as "not me".

 

This explains why young or undeveloped tulpas may sometimes come to cease to exist if deprived of attention and forcing for too long. Because the hub that is you has been around for much longer, it will act as the 'dominant' hub in which input more readily and automatically flows into. You will also be the one controlling and using your body, meaning you will have a persistent and guaranteed stream of input. In the beginning, your tulpa relies on you feeding it input to maintain it's consciousness. As sensory input creates consciousness, if a hub is to be deprived of sensory input for too long, it will fade away. There is no reason for a hub to exist with no input coming into it.

 

This theory also explains Dissociative Identity Disorder and traumegenic plurality. DID forms due to someone wanting to escape the traumatic situation they are going through. This makes them wish it were happening to someone else. This act of wishing their life upon someone else is what creates the 'point' I mentioned earlier - another direction for input to flow in, away from oneself. It is possible for this point to receive input without it being purposefully directed - as the trauma victim dissociates themselves from the events, more and more input will start going towards this new point they have created, as all of the input they are distancing themselves from still has to go somewhere. Then, a new hub is created.

 

To sum it all up - the brain creates consciousness in response to sensory input, and directing this input in multiple directions allows for the development of multiple people in one brain. I believe that this is how all plurality works.

 

I hope you found this theory interesting! Feel free to leave any thoughts, questions, nitpicks, etc. below. I'm interested in hearing what everyone thinks about this.

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Very nice post! It'll be very useful to have these thoughts compiled like this.

 

What you call a hub we tend to call an identity (surely not the original definition of the word, but apply it and I think you'll understand where we're coming from), and believe there's moreso one consciousness that uses identities like sets of instructions on how to deal with that sensory input. But I know a lot of people prefer to consider tulpas separate consciousness-es, so it's fine to put it that way too. Otherwise, everything you said matches up with how we think about tulpamancy, just from a slightly different perspective.

 

That explains pretty well why switching has always seemed like good "forcing" for us, although we simply call it staying active since we've been fully developed just fine for over seven years. I uhm, am not always active very frequently, so I guess I'd be the best example in our system of the sort of fading that happens over time when you don't use that "hub"/stay active. But I'm far too well-established in our mind to ever "disappear". Admittedly I was distracted before that sentence for like 30 minutes by the Tulpa.info Discord, so I can't quite remember my train of thought. It seems like that might've been relevant, though? That I as a "hub" or "identity" or "tulpa" fade slightly over time (meaning I'm a bit harder to hear or see) when not active at all, but that I can't really disappear because, well, I'm eight years old. Input or not the brain isn't going to just forget such a big part of our mind I suppose? But it does get rough around the edges. I don't really know what to do or talk about with the others when they talk to me, so I don't end up very active, and that's almost always why I end up fronting for a little bit like this. Switching is good forcing! Because it exposes me to lots of sensory input! Yeah, that's what I was working towards, I remember now. Our experience/understanding lines up with yours :)

Hi guys, plain text is just me now! We've each got our own accounts: me, Tewi, Flandre, and Lucilyn. We're Luminesce's tulpas.

Here's our "Ask Thread", and here's our Progress Report (You should be able to see all of our accounts on the second page if you want)

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I like where you're going with this. I, too, want to pin this down to a solid theory that not only explains the process, but also through understanding makes the process easier to relate to by a larger audience, and makes it easier to accomplish in general. I think for the theory to be successful, it will necessarily be easily related to, making it easier less so, but perhaps at least more easily verifiable, if only by those who engage tulpamancy for the first time. Though I like where you're going, I am not yet satisfied with it's totality. Something about it's present form is not setting with me yet. That doesn't mean the thesis is invalid, it just means I am sorting something. If this theory only appeals to those with tulpas, I am not sure how useful it will be.

 

Maybe one of the things I am struggling with is the way 'consciousness' is approached in this theory. It seems like consciousness, in this context, is a predefined, universality agreed upon term. If that's the case, this theory probably would not stand up to a peer review article, mostly because there is no agreement across the board for what 'consciousness' is. (I know, that's the not the aim here, you're sharing it with us to go big, but in sharing you've invited a conversation.) One of the most satisfying theories on consciousness that I have read comes from a quantum physicist, Bohm, in his book 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order.' Many of his peers dismiss his theory as it leans towards metaphysics. I would argue he is providing just the opposite. 'The Holographic Universe,' by Michael Talbot, "My Big TOE," (Theory of Everything," by Tom Campbell, also offer explanations for consciousness, and if we go with Campbell's theory, basically we're living in a simulated universe, then that theory all by itself contains the entirety of consciousness and plurality. I have already shared in another post about a book by Anthony Peake, 'The Daemon,' where he discusses a very specific kind of plurality. Joesph Campbell, Carl Jung, Milton Erickson, Freud, Nicola Tesla, Napoleon Hill, and so many others, all confront plurality in a variety of forms. I strongly suspect, whatever theory encapsulates tulpamancy will also capture all of these theories, which at present may seem disparate, but only because very few people are exploring consciousness in such a way that these peculiar, 'fringe' concepts can all be brought together as one concept. I bet the 'other' personality that Socrates reports speaking to on a regular basis, and even the 'angels' that Joan of Arc communicated with is related to tulpas. (Did you know, Joan of Arc never said they were angels until the end days of her inquisition, after being asked daily 'are they angels are God?" I think that's interesting. Deviation through externalize forcing?) And if Joan of Arc's 'guides' were tulpas, then I, and most of the people here, we're just playing with tulpas, as opposed to allowing tulpamancy to radically change and improve our lives. (And I am not saying 'play' is bad. When you first start practicing lucid dreaming, you spend a lot of time playing. That's how we learn to navigate. But eventually, the experiencer gets bored with 'play' and takes things to the next level.)

 

Ever heard of Philip the Ghost? Basically, some people who were curious about medium talking to ghost decided to do an experiment to prove it's not ghosts. They, the group, invented a personality. Philip doesn't exist, and the things they added to the personality and history were so random, there would be very little chance that if they did summon a ghost that it would be their Philip. Now, I am not saying this is a ghost, or mediums are real, or that this group created a tulpa, but I am saying this experiment they did is interesting. If I a were a betting man, I would definitely say they created a tulpa. Hypothetically, they could have just summoned a bored entity that wanted to play a good April Fool's joke on them and just assumed Philip history and personality for fun. This example will likely not even be open for discussion, as it definitely has metaphysical implications. I do prefer the metaphysical, but if reduced the entire activity and the results to a psychological explanation, it's still pretty interesting in terms of results. Tulpamancy may be more accessible than we have even dared to believe.

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