Does your tulpa (or you, a tulpa) have a parallel stream of consciousness?

[Jamie]

Hey, I want to preface this by saying that I have some background stuff that may make my experience different than others'. My first tulpa was accidental and we had no idea what he was until long after he was gone. Even before that, I've had the experience of a second (well, now third) stream of consciousness that has no identity and functions like a radio broadcast, and continues to this day. 

 

My first tulpa, G, developed what I'm going to call a "stream of consciousness" after a few months of sentient existence (though he existed as a sort of proto-tulpa for years prior.) I think in mostly sentences, plus maybe some images and visuals, but G thought mostly in symbols. For example, if he was about to tell me to get busy and do my homework, I would "sense" something like "work-need-remind" and then G would say "Hey, don't you have a test to study for?"

 

 I sensed G's stream of consciousness from the same location as his mind-presence, in the right corner of my jaw. The symbols weren't words, or images, or anything like that, but just... symbols. Some kind of tulpish, like the pure concept of "remind" or "red" or "fish" or whatever. He was never very emotional, but I felt his emotions from the same place as well. 

 

This stream of consciousness went on nearly 24/7. Just like I'm most always thinking, his thought process always worked alongside mine. This personal experience is my main evidence for the reality of parallel processing. It was all one brain, but that brain was able to maintain two streams of consciousness, both able to interact with each other and the outside world. G's stream of consciousness was not as developed as mine, but it makes me wonder what might have happened if G lived longer. 

 

Just in the last week, I've started sensing this symbolic thinking from C, from where his mind-presence lives, right behind my eyebrow. It's much rarer that G's and doesn't run constantly beside mine, but it's there. We fully intend on testing the limits of this. It's pretty exciting to us both and I take it as a major sign of development. 

 

So, does my experience line up with yours? What does parallel processing mean for you? Do you think a human brain is capable of forming two, fully-developed streams of consciousness that run at the same time? Personally, I'm not sure. I feel like my thinking will always be the most developed, just because I've been around the longest and my brain knows me best. 

 

-J

[TheImign]

I don't think that the brain is actually capable of parallel processing, though it is pretty good at deciving itself into thinking that it can. I think that a good test for this would be too have your tulpa possess one of your arms and have both of you write two different sentiences, if you can pull it off so that you can both write unrelated things at the same time then you would have parallel processed

[Jamie]

That's a good idea, I'll remember that.

I don't actually know if the brain is running these two processes at the same time, i.e. parallel. When we look at something and I get a reaction from C as well as from myself, one reaction always starts first, even if they overlap. It makes me think that what's really happening is that my brain 1.) processes the stimuli, like seeing myself drop something, 2.) my brain calculates my personality/ego/conscious/whatever's reaction and 3.) calculates C's reaction, then finally 4.) plays the reactions out. I think "Darn, not again" and C thinks "Oh no", and I hear both my voice and his. All one brain, but two responses. Is that parallel? I don't know.

 

-J

[Guest]

Parallel processing examples can be practiced, even Bre's example might be done with practice. This does not necessarily mean parallel processing.

 

In my mind, parallel processing would be this: do two things that you've never done together before, and get it right the first time. Getting it right the 6th time isn't impressive.

[Guest LanceReilyn]

Here are a few interesting theories (emphasis on theories) on the topic of consciousness and how they operate.

 

"Divided consciousness", Ernest Hilgard

"Neurocluster brain model", Author unknown, but this is a rabbit hole of hundreds of pages of.. well.. lets just politely call them theories and one-sided debates.

“Society of Mind”, by Marvin Minsky

"The disunity of consciousness", by Gerard O'Brien and Jon Opie

Dr Michael Gazzaniga has at least 13 publications between 1970 and 2018 that question and speculate on the nature of consciousness, starting from people who have had corpus calloscotomy (split brain) surgery.

 

 

 

Personally, I have to be careful what I expose myself to; I tend to over-think everything and I don't feel I am ready to risk planting a dozen seeds of doubt. The last time I tried entertaining the thought that my tulpa was something other than another full-blown person, she got really upset at me. "How would you like being called not real?" I pondered it and decided if I were clinically told 'I' was just a collection of sensory inputs and chemical reactions, I'd feel pretty crappy too.

[Guest]

I think most people here agree with Gerard O'Brien. You have to 'prove it' to espouse otherwise.

[solarchariot]

Here are a few interesting theories (emphasis on theories) on the topic of consciousness and how they operate.

 

"Divided consciousness", Ernest Hilgard

"Neurocluster brain model", Author unknown, but this is a rabbit hole of hundreds of pages of.. well.. lets just politely call them theories and one-sided debates.

“Society of Mind”, by Marvin Minsky

"The disunity of consciousness", by Gerard O'Brien and Jon Opie

Dr Michael Gazzaniga has at least 13 publications between 1970 and 2018 that question and speculate on the nature of consciousness, starting from people who have had corpus calloscotomy (split brain) surgery.

 

 

 

Personally, I have to be careful what I expose myself to; I tend to over-think everything and I don't feel I am ready to risk planting a dozen seeds of doubt. The last time I tried entertaining the thought that my tulpa was something other than another full-blown person, she got really upset at me. "How would you like being called not real?" I pondered it and decided if I were clinically told 'I' was just a collection of sensory inputs and chemical reactions, I'd feel pretty crappy too.

 

Wow! Nice articles. thank you