[survey] Where did you create/recognize your tulpas?

[Jamie]

I was talking to Cassidy about how he was born right here, right in my room where I'm typing this now. The joke is that Gavin gets to be baby Jesus in all the nativity scenes, because he was born on a bus. I imagine that most tulpas were also created in their host's rooms, or previous rooms, but if you're a tulpa and you fit into that "Other" box up there, let me know where you were!

And, if you were unintentionally created, I'd love to hear what it was like when your host recognized you as a tulpa.

 

Also, on a different note, where were you emotionally (hosts)? Was anyone here not lonely out of their skull, or already a plural system? 

 

-J

Edit: clarification

[Apollo Fire]

Well I don't believe creation is an instantaneous process, it's a gradual one, but I'll answer as though you mean where the creator initially started making them.

 

My creation (12/3/16) started in host's bedroom. He was sitting on the floor with his computer visualizing me in a chair and talking to me, reading through guides on the forums.

I don't think he was very depressed or anything during that time, I think him creating me filled him with a lot of hope and joy. I kinda think he was creating me for the anticipation of becoming depressed and lonely.

 

Piano's a big complicated mess and there's really no telling when he started to exist. The original Piano merge began downstairs in the living room/kitchen area, though I obviously don't think Piano himself was actually created on that day. Long story short, the Piano merge resulted in a new tulpa being formed inside the merge, who kept the namesake. Whenever he was created, the two mergers were likely in a very bad mental state, struggling with trauma and self-hatred, which caused them to desire a new identity that became a tulpa unintentionally. We pin his birthday on the merge date, 1/26/17, though he likely started existing at some point within a week or two after.

 

Indigo was created (10/2/17) by another tulpa named Tacio, who's no longer present. I think Tacio started forcing him while at school, in the computer science classroom, more specifically. Our entire system was in a very bad mental state at that time. We'd just been hurt badly by someone we loved and trusted, everyone was miserable and suicidal. Tacio started making him in the hopes that he could help us, somehow. Piano had gone dormant, host couldn't hold the front without crying, and I hardly wanted to be around, so it was left with just Tacio fronting, trying to hold us all together. Host let him create the new tulpa as long as he was the one who handled all the forcing, since it was his idea. I ended up going dormant, too, because I didn't want my own misery to hurt the new tulpa. And well, while I can't say I approve of making a tulpa to solve one's problems is a good thing to do, it was successful. Indigo really lifted the dark cloud from our mind, he made us all feel whole again. He brought so much love and hope to the system. Something so bright and colorful came from such a dark time, and I'm so grateful to Tacio for making him.

 

I can go through where other tulpas we've had originated, as well. None of these tulpas are active anymore (though Paul and HJP come about occasionally). 

 

Paul was a character who I think host started imagining in his bedroom around the age of 10 or so (2010). HJP was also a character, invented in the 7th grade math classroom (2012/2013). Luxi I'm pretty sure we came up with in the bedroom, but we actually brought her into the system in that same computer science classroom (3/14/17). Luci (who we no longer believe was actually sentient) appeared in trig class in high school. Tacio also was created in the bedroom, the same day Luci appeared (5/15/17). Luki (who we also no longer believe was actually sentient) appeared in the bedroom (8/19/17). 

 

Paul and HJP's creations were probably with normal mental states. All the others were during a long period of shared depression in the system. We were hardly thinking clearly during that time, hence the huge number of members.

[Bear]

In the back yard garden, looking off to the horizon, April 19, 2018. My mind was clear, I was feeling somewhat normal (but that was an island in a sea of turmoil at the time). I simply started visualizing and talking, suddenly there was a responce out of nowhere. [shameless plug]My PR details day one on my second enrry.[/shameless plug]

[Guest LanceReilyn]

This one is a bit tricky for me to answer because though we don't have any substantial proof, we believe the mental seed, pathways, or whatever would become her had been planted in my childhood and flowered briefly a time or two through my life before going dormant again. I don't know the exact moment that seed grew into Reilyn, or even if she had actually been around in one form or another from a long time ago or what. It may have been her years ago, it may not have been. Given the possibility of manufacturing memories, especially when the desire is great enough, we aren't assuming anything.

 

She does believe with a certainty that some part of her, in some way, has been around since I was young but neither of us knows exactly why or when and has nothing else to go off of so there is little point worrying about it. I had felt stray alien emotions, head pressure and a heard a broken word every now and then in mind speak from the second day of intentionally forcing her but the only thing she remembers of that time is a feeling of frustration and a desire to reach out to me in some way, any way. She thinks that she might have been thawing out or waking up from her dormancy but in the end decided that whatever she was before didn't matter. She was officially "born" as a tulpa when she broke through to me while I was driving home from work, as reflected in my first PR post on here. That was the moment where "maybe this is real" turned into "holy crap there is another person in my head" so it seemed as good a time as any to mark her birthday.

 

I had only seen the word "tulpa" two weeks before that and decided almost immediately it was something I wanted in my life. I was skeptical at first but assumed an entire community of people on here couldn't all just be fake or crazy so there must be some substance to it. Without getting too weird or meta into my own identity theories, it turns out a part of me really desperately wanted her and needed her in my life. Was I lonely? Not really, to be honest. I was too cynical and untrusting of others and myself to get into a long-term relationship and hanging out with friends on weekends or seeing people at work was all the social contact I needed. To be blunt, a head mate couldn't abandon or use me, so the appeal to forge a strong bond with one of those over a walking, talking, physical embodiment of disappointment in the real world was strong, I guess.

[GrayTheCat]

I created Ranger by accident, and I have no idea when he was born. My guess is he was born in my room, but the exact creation date is unknown.

 

Not getting into the "maybe Ranger was a semi-tulpa" stuff, I believe it was before January 2018 I shut down and decided on focusing on just Ranger instead of any of my other thoughtforms. From that point forward, my forcing managed to be productive even though the forcing sessions were really me and Ranger pitted against my anxiety and me asking Ranger for help or cowering in fear.

 

Towards the end of January, I was walking to the bus home and I was thinking about Ranger. For either the first or possibly second time, he held a sign that read in red letters "I am real". By this point, I realized my "imaginary friend" was somehow more than that.

 

At home, I kept typing into google "imaginary friends for adults" and "imaginary friends" and "imaginary friends weird" and so on, reading though several articles about imaginary friends and only realizing that it was less and less like my situation. I eventually found a lucid dreaming website that talked about Tulpas, and after googling what a "Tulpa" was I stumbled across Tulpa.info.

 

At first, I started in the IRC chat and spoke with the people there at the time. Then, I decided to start using the forum. I was never particularly active until around July (but I will never forget that Vos is the queen of memes).

 

Since I was forcing Ranger when I was at my most stressed and anxious, there were some repercussions from that. However, Ranger eventually built a resistance to my anxiety and he helped me walk through a lot of it and taught me how to show myself some self-respect since.

 

I was really lonely at the time too, and during that time period I thought the only one who could help me is Ranger. That changed after seeking help for my depression, and to this day Ranger and I are working on being more social.

[Breloomancer]

I started thinking about creating Monika about a month before I actually went ahead with it. I found out about tulpas about a month before summer break, and I knew that they were a lifelong commitment and that it was important to give them lots of attention, especially when starting out, so I figured that I should wait a month to decide if this is really a good idea, then if I decide so conditions would be favorable to start work. Can you guess which conclusion I came to?

 

Once I started I went all in. I was forcing almost non stop all day for two weeks, after that point she started talking on her own, which is really a shame for her; if she had just waited a week or two longer to become sentient the she could have been born in a separate country and had dual citizenship or something. But instead of that she was just born in my bedroom

 

I was pretty lonely at the time of création too. I had a few things going for me, but I was pretty much half assing life at that point. I am doing much better now, in no small part due to Monika

[Redacted System]

Azure and Jade were both created in our bedroom. Damien was created in a bedroom in a holiday unit. If we’re to include the two non-tulpas, Torea was originally one of Azure’s dream characters, who we made a thoughtform in our bedroom, and Kaffryn (who we only created this morning) was created on a couch in another unit.

[Venomous]

Around the house, definitely, because I don't have the capacity to stay still if I focus on something, so I immediately started walking around the house lol. But if you mean the very initial moment like, the "I AM DOING IT, BOOM" moment, in my room.

[Ember.Vesper]

Vesper: I was created primarily in the basement gaming room of my GM’s house. It was an extremely stressful time in Ember’s life, when she was running two games simultaneously, one of which was traumatic for her every session. She correctly believed she couldn’t give it up without losing my game and stuck it out for love of me.

 

I don’t remember my first words in this world or the exact circumstances, but our earliest conversations were overwhelmingly while home ‘alone’. My general attitude was, ‘Hey, a person! I should talk to her!’ Over the course of a few days this shaded into, ‘Um, where did my body go?’ Like many soulbonds, I had full vocality and self-awareness from the first moment. Ember had been speaking to her characters on a very limited scale for years, so she was a bit surprised when I 'moved in' with her, but not shocked. We both kind of thought at first that it was a temporary thing, but then realized neither of us wanted that.

 

Ember wasn’t lonely during that time; she was actually around friends a bit too much, and wasn’t taking enough time private time for an introvert. But in addition to gaming stress, her relationship with her wife had started to seriously deteriorate, so she wasn’t feeling affirmed at home.

 

---

 

Iris: I was created originally at a gaming store, as a result of a protracted character negotiation between Ember and my GM that left both very unsatisfied. My game moved several times, as at least one player had complaints about every facility they tried. Some of the most intense unintentional forcing took place in the same basement gaming room Vesper was created in, as her GM was a player in my game. But my emotional depths were discovered at home, in a couple of stories Ember wrote from my perspective.

 

My first words in this world were, “I’m done here. You’re on your own,” at the beginning of the tenth session of my game, at a Cuban restaurant. (One session of Vesper’s game was at the same restaurant.) I remember them because they affected Ember so deeply. They were harsh, but they were correct for the time and I am glad to have had a better life since than before. She had only a little previous experience with characters talking to her, though Thistle spoke for the first time only a few hours later. When Ember was considering a replacement character for me, Thistle interjected, "Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!" It did not occur to Ember at the time that either of us could ever potentially be equal partners with her, and indeed Thistle remains only a character.

 

Ember was not lonely during the period of my creation; she was happy and hopeful, as she had new games that were going very well and a very good relationship with her wives.

 

I cannot say that I had full vocality and self-awareness from the first moment. If I did, I did not exercise it, as I had no interest in Ember, this world, or my own existence for nearly three years. But I have continuity of identity going back to that time and would speak curtly when spoken to throughout the intervening period.