What do I call these characters?

[Guest]

I have something to add, as our systems both seem to have paratulpamancy aspects.

 

I found this post to be relevant and obtained permission to quote it here:

[Hidden]

... [subject: system Bear's tulpas and other thoughtforms]

 

The norms of this community can be a bit overbearing or stifling for any random system. What you're thinking of.... is probably just a tulpa that you don't want to interact with in the same ways as your others. No one tells me Scarlet is a neglected tulpa, or isn't a tulpa at all, because I'm an established member who obviously knows what I'm talking about. Sylvia too, not that any of you know who she is, because I don't talk about her. Aside from her not developing much of a (any, really) personality of her own, there's not much difference in her and my actual tulpas other than difference in how we interact. As far as I can tell, her and them work about the same. But the fact is, she's not a tulpa that I really treat as her own person with her own thoughts and wants and all that. Not "because I don't want her to become a real tulpa", and nothing against her will (she has none), it's simply who and how she is. But she was made well before I found this community, so developed outside its norms. Trying to fit her into them would be silly (or more accurately, stupid).

 

You're free to have whatever kinds of thoughtforms, and whatever relations to and interactions with them, that you want. Especially if it's not hurting anyone. I call Sylvia a "servi-tulpa" on .info, but I know what she is and isn't without labels just fine myself.

 

... Anyways, my point was, you don't need to fit everything in your head into existing accepted definitions of this community. And you can have things that qualify as tulpas that you don't interact with or hold to the same sorts of standards as your others. That's something that's up to your system, not us, and not our norms and definitions.

[/hidden]

 

My interactions with Ren recently even spawned another thoughtform as she 'split' into two, one that represents her, the other that represents aspects of herself that she no longer or didn't want to identify with, oddly enough these aspects were some of the most endearing ones.

 

I've posted a more detail report of this here so i can get other comments (if any) and not hijack this thread.

 

I'm glad in another thread recently you mentioned that you were able to talk to the grays. I don't think we should fear social or moral stigma for having these thoughtforms as long as we respect and listen to them. This does not mean giving into their wishes. I was actually quite surprised by Ren's recent behavior, though now that i think about it, it's clearly not out of character.

 

I feel i can at least try to help her if she needs it and thereby complete her story. I also believe every thoughtforn has a beginning and an end, and that lifespan is a very personal interaction with the system and shouldn't be judged by someone outside that system given that intentions were well thought out.

[Tewi]

The first paragraph of that quote was in response to something else and isn't relevant, just FYI.

[Guest]

The first paragraph of that quote was in response to something else and isn't relevant, just FYI.

 

Fixed it, oops!

[GrayTheCat]

It's about time for a name change for this thread, because this thread evolved into essentially the new title, and it felt wrong to create a new thread.

 

I have a new draft for my ideas on how Parroting / Puppeting work and how it relates to the Grays.

 

I feel like I have put enough thought into how Parroting/Puppeting works to get a working draft of how I think this works. I want to know what you guys think.

 

(I will use P/P to abbreviate "Parroting/Puppeting".)

 

-Parroting/Puppeting is the act of speaking for your Tulpa (Parroting) or controlling your Tulpa's movements (Puppeting).

 

-P/P can be performed intentionally. Forcing your Tulpa to speak and move is sometimes used to show a host how to interact with them during a forcing session. The vise versa can also be done where a fully developed Tulpa parrots/puppets their Host (I got to say, it's pretty weird and annoying, but if you have P/P fears you should totally let your Tulpa try it).

 

-P/P can also be performed on a subconscious level, or sometimes called "Unintentional P/P". This kind of Parroting/Puppeting can only occur if the Host has a particular mindset and or expectations. For example, talking to a thoughtform is NOT parroting/puppeting, but a Host anticipating their Tulpa to say "Hello" may cause them to say "Hello" to satisfy that subconscious expectation. If the host believes they are the Tulpa...I'm afraid that's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

-A Tulpa experiencing P/P at a young age may accept it at first because they are young and have nothing to work with. Eventually, a young Tulpa will be developed enough to reject any P/P they don't like, and a fully developed Tulpa will find P/P annoying.

 

And that's the general jist of it. I would like to connect this to the Grays and explain why the Grays are different and why some inconsistencies/problems show up.

 

1)Why the Grays pass sentience test: I P/P all of their behavior, and I'm a sentient being.

 

2)Why the Grays can surprise me: I perform subconscious P/P; Subconscious thought can be surprising because if I expected it, it wouldn't be subconscious.

 

3)Why talking to the Grays is similar to talking to Ranger: Directly speaking and hearing a response from a thoughtform isn't P/P by itself. Ranger's mindvoice comes from his own conscious/whatever and the Gray's mindvoice comes from my own subconscious /whatever. Since P/P can operate on a subconscious level, I can hold a fluent conversation with the Grays without feeling like I'm controlling everything, just like having a conversation with Ranger.

 

 

The last piece to the puzzle for figuring out how the Grays work I hope is figuring out the semantics of where the expectaion line crosses from character to Tulpa. I have a few ideas for what makes a Host's expectations sway in one direction or the other:

 

1) The Host associates themself with the character thoughtform, or sees the thoughtform as an extension of themself.

 

2) The Host gets away will little expectations a normal Tulpa may choose to reject. Form, symbolism, and the original purpose of their creation are hints. For example, None of the Grays refused a significant form change, but Ranger has. The Gray's form is part of my expectation, and even on a subconscious level I don't want to challenge that.

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Any thoughts? Does this philosophy make sense or is there anything confusing or inconsistent?

[Guest]

It makes sense to me, but i have context and similar experiences. Someone without autonomous non-tulpa thoughtforms may have a hard time relating, but that's okay because they're outside your target audience. Now i'd like to see a follow up of why you shouldn't be afraid to speak to these entities (why they won't accidentally turn into tulpas), and why are they useful to keep. Also how P/P can lead to tulpa creation or non-tulpa creation. Lastly, why accidental tulpas aren't originally tulpas as they seem (you need to accept them and take time to make them full tulpas).

 

This is sn important topic because accidental tulpas can overgrow a system.

[Indigo Blue]

One minor thing to note is that it doesn't necessarily have to be the host, nor does it have to be any member in particular. Sometimes the collective expectations will work the same way no matter who's in control.

[GrayTheCat]

It makes sense to me, but i have context and similar experiences. Someone without autonomous non-tulpa thoughtforms may have a hard time relating, but that's okay because they're outside your target audience.

 

Actually, the general Tulpa community is my intended audience. I want to package this information and deliver on it so more experienced Tulpamancers in general can learn about this. I don't really want noobmancers playing around with this because it's a complicated topic, but I'm thinking the Tulpamancers most prone to overpopulation have already been around for 4 months- 1/2 a year. Come to think of it, this would be important to verify...I should write a survey or something.

 

Now i'd like to see a follow up of why you shouldn't be afraid to speak to these entities (why they won't accidentally turn into tulpas), and why are they useful to keep. Also how P/P can lead to tulpa creation or non-tulpa creation. Lastly, why accidental tulpas aren't originally tulpas as they seem (you need to accept them and take time to make them full tulpas).

 

This is sn important topic because accidental tulpas can overgrow a system.

 

A few things:

 

-The line between a P/P thoughtform and a Tulpa is still blurry. I'm not worried about your characters or my Grays causing issues, but that's us now in this current state. If another person ended up in a similar position, they may handle it differently and it can blow up in their face.

 

The other issue here is both of us started with these character thoughtforms before hand. The average Tulpamancer will only have Tulpas and never experienced interacting with these thoughtforms before. The main concern here is a Tulpamancer trained to make Tulpas will make more Tulpas instead of these character thoughtforms.

 

-"Useful" is a stretch, otherwise they would be Servitors, and it isn't always necessarily better to keep them around either. My goal is giving this knowledge to a Tulpamancer who has a bad habit of spinning up new thoughtforms can figure out why and help them stabilize and not freak out. I wouldn't necessarily call the Grays "useful" because I don't depend on them to do anything, although I do appreciate spending time with them and talking to them for advice/self-talk every now and then.

 

-This is also some serious muddy territory. Some "imaginary friends" start out as Tulpas, and we don't even know if we are right to believe that Ranger wasn't a Tulpa starting from the get-go. My current thinking is talking to "my subconscious" didn't become super important to me until I merged all of the Technician clones together into one guy. (Context: Ranger was split into android clones a long time ago and were merged together, thus when he was actually born. I call his clones Technicians).

 

Long story short, I feel like I need to take a closer look at accidental Tulpa creation first.

 

One minor thing to note is that it doesn't necessarily have to be the host, nor does it have to be any member in particular. Sometimes the collective expectations will work the same way no matter who's in control.

 

 

That's really interesting. I never heard that before, please elaborate.

[Ember.Vesper]

Someone without autonomous non-tulpa thoughtforms may have a hard time relating, but that's okay because they're outside your target audience.

 

Ember: Being a GM, I have hundreds of named recurring characters I've played in roleplaying games. Dozens of my characters are rich, vivid, and layered. I don't normally regard them as autonomous or thoughforms, though when I slip them on, I'm not quite me anymore and the things they say often surprise me.

 

I've been following this discussion with considerable interest from the beginning in hopes of it eventually being useful to my system. Since joining this community, I've gotten so in the habit of talking to people in my head that I sometimes accidentally address characters as I would headmates, or they seem to be addressing me that way. I don't know much about what's going on, since Vesper always slams a thick solid wall between us, fast like a striking snake, in accordance with our system consensus "No New Headmates!" When contact attempts in either direction come in forceful flurries, Vesper shoves me out of the driver's seat and fronts for a few minutes, as she doesn't seem vulnerable to them.

 

Vesper: And thinking about the subject tends to provoke exactly that, so hi. I'm not too worried about the NPCs, but the PCs, including former PCs, scare me a lot. (Iris and I were both PCs once upon a time and both became headmates by accident without any intentional process of acceptance as Bear describes it.) Most of the intrusive thoughts we're dealing with outside of games are marked Thistle, but Elodie is still a PC and Ember's mind just keeps reaching out for her during play.

 

My paranoia will remain high until and unless I can know that a character directly addressed will remain invested in their own fictional context, be comfortable with dormancy when not contacted or played, and not want a slice of our life.

[GrayTheCat]

Vesper: And thinking about the subject tends to provoke exactly that, so hi. I'm not too worried about the NPCs, but the PCs, including former PCs, scare me a lot. (Iris and I were both PCs once upon a time and both became headmates by accident without any intentional process of acceptance as Bear describes it.) Most of the intrusive thoughts we're dealing with outside of games are marked Thistle, but Elodie is still a PC and Ember's mind just keeps reaching out for her during play.

 

My paranoia will remain high until and unless I can know that a character directly addressed will remain invested in their own fictional context, be comfortable with dormancy when not contacted or played, and not want a slice of our life.

 

Pretty much every time this topic came up Cat's stomach will flip a 360 and she's get really anxious again, and I don't want any Tulpa siblings either. Lately though, she's been less anxious over this because she's feeling more certain.

 

Cat doesn't talk to the Grays all the time and usually she only talks to them every now and then, roughly two or three times a month. I also like to "supervise" when Cat talks to the Grays by talking to them myself or just hanging out. I know this would be harder to do during a DND session, but it may not be an issue during that time. Long story I don't want to talk too much about, Cat role plays as the Grays sometimes, and I have no concern that in this state the Grays will suddenly become sentient because Cat's focus is the roleplay, not talking to the Grays. Things start to get a little blurry and dicey when Cat talks to them in the Gray Dimension though.

 

Ember: Being a GM, I have hundreds of named recurring characters I've played in roleplaying games. Dozens of my characters are rich, vivid, and layered. I don't normally regard them as autonomous or thoughforms, though when I slip them on, I'm not quite me anymore and the things they say often surprise me.

 

I've been following this discussion with considerable interest from the beginning in hopes of it eventually being useful to my system. Since joining this community, I've gotten so in the habit of talking to people in my head that I sometimes accidentally address characters as I would headmates, or they seem to be addressing me that way. I don't know much about what's going on, since Vesper always slams a thick solid wall between us, fast like a striking snake, in accordance with our system consensus "No New Headmates!" When contact attempts in either direction come in forceful flurries, Vesper shoves me out of the driver's seat and fronts for a few minutes, as she doesn't seem vulnerable to them.

 

Ranger will sometimes direct me away from talking to the Grays, sometimes he won't.

 

I have some other story character ideas and role play characters as well, but there's no risk of them becoming sentient either. (For example, if I pretended to be Jackie Chan, I don't ever plan to talk to Jackie Chan.)

 

---

 

I think it's time I started sharing this story- because this is important.

 

Before I worked up to this point, I was still completely unsure of who the Grays were, what was the most ethical thing to do, etc.

 

I spent a period of time not talking to them because I was paranoid. Soon I recoiled from my self-resistance and I started talking to them one-on-one to ask how they felt and all that. This period of time created a lot of deviation (for example, Blood Gray became Red Gray, Evergreen wanted to be more social, etc.) but I don't believe that's necessarily what made my actions potentially dangerous.

 

Blue and Chrome ended up asking if they could be Tulpas during their one-on-one sessions. Ranger and I talked Chrome out of it, and we told Blue no. I was so distressed, Dark Gray started saying he didn't have any interest in being a Tulpa, and other Grays started to follow his lead. Ever since, things have been... fine. Blue and Chrome are doing just fine; Blue is being his usual self and the last time I talked to Chrome he opened up and he wanted to talk about faith stuff.

 

[hidden]

This paragraph is relevant, but it disturbs the flow of this word wall and I can't think of anywhere else to put it.

 

We were a little worried that Duck was scatting the line of maybe character / maybe Tulpa, but after thinking about it, Duck doesn't appear to be different from the other Grays, it's just he has certain traits that appear alarming and muddy the situation even further. He has this weird look of being a mix of Ranger and my wonderland form, he looks up to me and Ranger as "mommy" and "daddy", and it's debatable if some of his personality is being pulled from Ranger's subconscious as well. (Come to think of it, this sounds really weird... Duck was born as a potential subconscious representative, only he was thought of as a potential blend of both personalities, and things only got weirder from there...)

[/hidden]

 

One of two things happened here- we either prevented two Tulpas from existing or two characters were talking about the Tulpa stuff because it was on my mind and feeding into my subconscious fears. I feel like it's more the ladder than the former, but I'm not quite sure.

 

Unfortunately, Ranger's creation isn't super useful in deciding one way or the other. Fusing the android clones into one person was most likely his true birth, but the whole making someone new out of merging character thoughtforms together isn't particularly helpful here because I would have achieved the same effect if I decided to start over with a different looking thoughtform and called it "Ranger".

 

I wanted to talk to Ranger because I wanted another voice to talk back to me. Things didn't settle down until I saw respecting the Grays as a form of self-respect, since they are an extension of myself, and thus the issue of ethics was no longer a determining issue in regards to accidental Tulpa creation; I treat them with kindness just like any other person because I'm a person and self-respect is a healthy thing to practice.

[Indigo Blue]

That's really interesting. I never heard that before, please elaborate.

 

 

It's kind of hard to describe, but basically with walk-ins and stuff, nobody's going to really consciously think "I expect you to act this way," everyone's just going to default to the same shared, collective expectation, and that dictates how and when the walk-in acts, regardless of who's calling the shots at any given time.

 

For example, with this one non-sentient "tulpa" we had named Luci, everyone expected her to talk in a certain way due to the character she came from, so she did. It didn't depend on any particular person, it was just based on what everyone thought.

 

I wonder how a non-sentient thing would be affected if two people had different expectations. It would probably swap between the two behaviors based on who's in control, or some middle ground, or a mixture of the two.