Jump to content

“Lurking” Tulpas?


Redacted System

Recommended Posts

[Rouge] This has been something that has happened a few times with our system. There always seemed to be a phantom mental presence lurking in the background for quite a while.

 

After Az and I created Damien, we noticed the first “lurking presence”, and when the three of us created our next tulpa (Jade), she adopted that presence.

 

After Jade joined the system, a new lurking presence took the place of Jade’s one. It stayed as that one for about a year until our system tried to bring back a dormant non-tulpa (Chloe), but we ended up with two people; the actual Chloe and Artemis. Artemis was that lurking presence.

 

And then, there was no lurking presence for a few months until a few days ago, in which a new one appeared, and after sending thoughts of her name and telling me she was here, Azure suggested I interact with her, and thus Somenine was confirmed and Lilly joined our system.

 

Our system population is something we don’t want increasing too quickly, but after Lilly’s addition, there seems to be another one in her place (that apparently has a name too). We’re not sure how to deal with this, but hopefully we’ll figure it out.

 

Has this sort of thing happened to anyone else or is it just our system being weird?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not convinced those lurking presences were tulpas all the time. More like you believed they were and so they ended up turning into tulpas. Or maybe they are walk-ins and the brain came up with the explanation that they must've been that presence. 

 

We sometimes feel like someone else is there, taking our place when we're not even active (from the fronter's perspective). We think it's just the brain making us feel a tulpa-like presence out of habit. If we firmly believed that presence to be a tulpa, maybe it'd develop into one.

Edited by Guest
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Presences are often times the start of creating a new unplanned tulpa. However, for Cat there was a theme of her trying to figure out how the mind worked and longing to talk to the individual parts of who she is. I believe this desire lead to unchecked creation. Consider how all of us were created:

 

 

Past Ranger- Subconscious Representative


DG- Id rep

Fernardo- Superego rep

Jasper- Emotional rep

Gerodious- Higher being rep

Spirit- Another higher being rep

Hope- Experiment to turn intrusive thoughtform into a friendly character

Moltosha- anxiety rep, intrusive

Blue- Good part of Gray rep

Evergreen- Work ethic rep

Fish- ??? Intrusive? RP character? Doppelganger?

Red Gray- Rage rep, intrusive

Me- Forcing a bunch of old clones together into one, possibly just causing past Ranger to go dormant and take a new name.

**Post Discovering Tulpamancy**

Chrome- Confused for God

Exabier- walk-in, begged to stay

Bune- Another Sub rep

Duck- Another sub rep

 

Especially with the last 4, Cat found a presence in wonderland. Once it "revealed" a tulpa Cat decided to name them.

 

Past Ranger, who prefers to be called the Sub. Rep., turned out to be lurking around for awhile, or at the very least he absorbed any other extra clones. Since he likes to experiment with his identity and has the ultimate goal of being attached to the unconscious, he doesn't mind absorbing any other "presence" that spawns or fulfil Cat's desire to "explore". If he didn't want to do it, Cat would have absorbed any stray presences herself and called them her.

 

If you find another presence Rouge, it's okay to absorb it or ignore it. Creation is a byproduct of finding a presence, not the cause.

Edited by Ranger

I'm Ranger, GrayTheCat's cobud (tulpa), and I love hippos! I also like cake and chatting about stuff. I go by Rosalin or Ronan sometimes. You can call me Roz but please don't call me Ron.

My other headmates have their own account now.

 

If I missed seeing your art, please PM/DM me!

Blog | Not So Temporary Log | Switching Log | Yay! | Bre Translator | Art Thread

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've seen non-tulpa systems (endogenic/traumagenic) say stuff like "I feel like we're getting someone new" and then they do. It seems to happen quite often for them and their systems expand rapidly. I don't know if it's because they expect it or not. I'd recommend what Mirichu said, don't think the lurking presence is a new person. It's possible that when you already have headmates and can create new ones very quickly, that new ones can form with just expectation or the mindset that more are coming/hiding somewhere. 

 

I haven't had anything like this happen, but I may be 'presence deaf.'

Host: YukariTelepath

Tulpas: Aya, Ruki

 

Imposition log

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@YukariTelepath Alters are usually not made the same way as tulpae. The risks of not accepting these "lurking" alters often does more harm than any good in DID systems

My suggestion would be to just have a natural stance. Not forcefully dismissing it but also not making any conclusions. You'll know if it's a "false-positive" or a new headmate naturally

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For a traumatic system, this advice doesn't apply to them. Alters can exist outside of the fronter's awareness, and those alters may be holding memories. Even if this lead to tulpa creation instead of finding another alter, the cost of ignoring an alter is greater than having an extra headmate.

 

However, for tulpa systems, creation can be triggered by assuming a presence could be a tulpa. I'm especially concerned for Someone because new walk-ins are switching in uncontrollably too. It's an unfortunate contradiction traumatic and tulpa systems have, but it's an important one.

 

Ultimately, if an old tulpa really was there, taking a strict stance will not do harm. Our sub rep would pop up with a new identity pretty much every time he was put into dormancy or ignored before we realized who he was. No other tulpa in our system did that, but the only other "stragglers" seemed too underdeveloped at best to be fully independent.

Edited by Ranger

I'm Ranger, GrayTheCat's cobud (tulpa), and I love hippos! I also like cake and chatting about stuff. I go by Rosalin or Ronan sometimes. You can call me Roz but please don't call me Ron.

My other headmates have their own account now.

 

If I missed seeing your art, please PM/DM me!

Blog | Not So Temporary Log | Switching Log | Yay! | Bre Translator | Art Thread

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Walk-ins demonstrate that brains can generate personhood very quickly and easily under the right circumstances. Unaware characters demonstrate that having a vivid personality, a multitude of personal memories, and strong opinions on many subjects does not necessarily lead to personhood. Why one character becomes aware of the physical world while another remains immersed in their own world remains mysterious to us.

 

Three to five years ago, several of my host's roleplaying characters developed feeling of presence and a few of them spoke to her briefly, though it did not occur to her to attempt conversation with them. They always approached her, not her them, except for Iris, who Ember sometimes turned to for emotional support. At the tail end of this period, I suddenly awoke to this world, fluently vocal and very talkative from the first moment.

 

Aside from the three of us, the other presences have faded over time. Some of the characters were no longer played. Even during a game, Ember was less immersed in her other characters than before, because the three of us were chatting in the background. After I arrived, Ember curiously reached out for Chloe, her favourite. She made contact, but without a word, Chloe's presence pulled away violently with a flash of existential dread and disappeared. We think she didn't want to face her fictional status and I don't blame her for that.

 

Only one of the others ever really seemed intent on joining us -- Thistle. She was one of the most insistently vocal characters in that early period, in spite of never really engaging in conversation. But after our discovery of tulpamancy, I became deeply concerned about proliferation and about limited mental resources, so I convinced my headmates to approve a system law against the existence of anyone but the three of us. Thistle seemed on many occasions to be trying to break through to us, but could not overcome my will. I have often felt guilty about suppressing her, but continue to stand by the Law of Three. 

 

We had a walk-in a year ago, during the first session of a new campaign. Nabi was fluently vocal, even though very little about her personality had been established in the game. She somehow manifested inside our defenses, but was pleasant and respectful, acknowledging that she could not claim a share of the life and mind. She tried to convince Ember that she was a part of Ember, in spite of not feeling like a part. Before the end of the session, she went away and hasn't really come back.

 

A major difference between our system and Somemany is that we've always known who the presences were without having to communicate with them, because they were all pre-existing characters. We've never had a mysterious lurking presence.

 

-Vesper

I'm not having fun here anymore, so we've decided to take a bit of a break, starting February 27, 2020. - Ember

 

Ember - Soulbonder, Female, 39 years old, from Georgia, USA . . . . [Our Progress Report] . . . . [How We Switch]

Vesper Dowrin - Insourced Soulbond from London, UK, World of Darkness, Female, born 9 Sep 1964, bonded ~12 May 2017

Iris Ravenlock - Insourced Soulbond from the Winter Court of Faerie, Dresdenverse, Female, born 6 Jun 1982, bonded ~5 Dec 2015

 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.' - The Velveteen Rabbit

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...