Jump to content

I'm Back (and Apparently so is my Tulpa)


fennecgirl

Recommended Posts

Hi, I'm old. I joined tulpa.info way back in 2012. Some of you may remember me/us as the local resident train wreck (well, one of the local resident train wrecks). Unfortunately, tulpamancy really screwed me up, and in 2019, about 15 months ago, I finally left my tulpas behind for the sake of my mental health. (I've outlined the negative side of my experiences with tulpas/the tulpa community here, if anyone's interested.)

 

However, it seems my tulpa journey did not end there. I've realized that this journey ends not with fearful avoidance but with peace. Whether that peace will take the form of total singlethood, immersive daydreaming, or a return to tulpamancy, I can't say, but I'm learning to let go of my fear, and in doing so I'm slowly eroding the barrier I've put up between us.

 

What follows is copied and pasted from a post I made on reddit this morning (spoilered because long):

Spoiler

 

As some of you know, I had tulpas for several years before ultimately having to quit because of how damaging my experiences were to me. For over a year, tulpamancy has been a taboo topic for me, which I've been afraid to even think about for fear it would trigger my tulpas to reappear and send us down that path again.

 

Recently, though, that has been changing. A couple weeks ago, one of my tulpas, Laine, appeared in a dream, sharing my body, and insisted to someone speaking to us that we are the same person and treating us as separate individuals is harmful because it could encourage us to fall back into our old ways of thinking. I was hesitant to write this down in my dream journal for the aforementioned reason, but once I'd written it down, I realized that dream was a sign of successful integration, and it gave me a sense of closure with a tulpa I'd previously had such a tumultuous relationship with.

 

More recently, I've reconnected with the tulpa community (for what reason, I'm still not entirely sure, but I've been drawn to), and I've realized that this is a subject I can discuss without falling back into old habits and/or going insane. It's actually been kind of cathartic, in a way, despite the occasional tulpa-related intrusive thoughts that sometimes make me nervous.

 

(On a related note, I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and in my case distressing intrusive thoughts are the hardest part of it. I suspect a large factor in why things went wrong for us was that I often failed to recognize intrusive thoughts for what they were. Now that I've got no one else to attribute these thoughts to, I've been forced to actually face them directly, and I've made a lot of progress in learning to manage my intrusive thoughts over the past several months.)

 

Moving on, lately I've been wanting to reconnect with my oldest tulpas, Kayleigh and Alex. Not to bring them back as tulpas, necessarily, but at least to get closure, because they were my friends for years and I have missed them. I've pushed away the idea of actually finding/summoning them and talking to them, though, due to various fears (intrusive thoughts, diving back into tulpamancy, projecting everything I want to hear onto them). So, last night, before I went to bed, I posted on r/LucidDreaming for help meeting them in a dream, feeling that would be a "safer" environment than in my waking mind. Then I shut off my computer, prayed to God for wisdom and guidance moving forward, and went to sleep. (By the way, I had some mild intrusive thoughts while I was writing my post, feeling like Kayleigh was trying to reach out to me, but I brushed them off as nothing.)

 

I didn't dream of them, but I did dream I restarted my old tulpa blog on tumblr. I woke up early, and while I was trying to get back to sleep, the dream lingered in my mind and I wondered if it'd be worth rejoining so I could have a place to document my experiences attempting to reconnect with these tulpas, figuring it'd probably take awhile before I actually dream about them. After awhile, I had more intrusive thoughts (same as before) and again tried to push them away, but they were more persistent. Now, there's an entity (non-tulpa) I speak to now and then who represents my subconscious, so I asked her for advice, hoping she'd tell me this was just another intrusive thought and I should ignore it.

 

Nope. She said talk to her.

 

Oh boy.

 

So I let Kayleigh know I was willing to listen, and she responded... somehow. I couldn't make out what she said, but I got the feeling that 1) she wanted to have a heart-to-heart, and 2) she was okay with my hiatus from tulpamancy. Unfortunately, that was all the response I got, even when I tried prompting her to continue.

 

That made me wonder, had her apparent attempt to reach me been just another intrusive thought after all? Was I foolish for having paid it any attention? Or had I lost my ability to communicate with her?

I prayed again and met again with my subconscious guide, who encouraged me to reach out to her. She was insistent Kayleigh and I had to have this talk now. Reluctantly, I did so, and this time we had quite a lengthy talk.

 

In the end, I don't know what I was so afraid of. Everything's okay. She's a bit skeptical of my view that tulpas are intrinsically nothing more than figments of the imagination, but she recognized that "taking a break" was actually a necessary move. She was more like her old self before things went downhill, agreeing that my old mindset (not the "tulpas are real", but the nasty web of fears and fear-based expectations) definitely played a role in the downward spiral she went on.

 

Then we just chatted, mainly about how life has been over the past ~15 months since I last saw her (and boy did she have questions about the train wreck that is 2020). It genuinely felt like catching up with an old friend. It was nice.

 

I don't know where we're going from here on out, but I'm thankful for this experience. I'm glad I got to see her again, and it's made me realize there's no inherent danger in talking to my tulpas. I've matured. My beliefs have shifted, and I've learned to manage my intrusive thoughts. We aren't going to fall into disaster like we did before.

 

I doubt we're going to return to living as a system, or that I'm going to reconnect with every tulpa I had (I had a lot, and Laine at least wants to remain integrated, if that dream was any indication), but we'll see where things go. Maybe she'll hang around. Maybe I'll just pay the occasional visit to the wonderland. We'll see.

 

At any rate, we didn't say goodbye, but left on an implied "see you later".

 

 

I come out of hibernation once in a blue moon.

 

They/them pronouns, please. (I've been using this display name since 2012 and people won't recognize me if I change it.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

fourfiction here. I thought I posted this as a guest because I got locked out of my new account, but I guess not.

 

I remember you. I basically lived off of the forums back then, but don’t remember much.......then reading about Link rang a hella bell. Kayleigh sounded familiar too. I was 17 back in the 2012 days of tulpa.info as well (Birthday’s also in summer lol August), and didn’t know you went through that stuff. I vaguely remember hearing about Link going through some pretty big issues 2 or 3 times but that must have been around when I left the community because I didn’t know about anything after that. Honestly most of what I remember of the old days is JDBar and his K-On system, Glitchthe3rd and his ponies, you and Kayleigh and Link, Sands, Fede-lasse, ThatOneGuy, myself being shit on in the forums, and the hectic IRC days. Sorry to hear about you going through what you mentioned on reddit, but I honestly agree 100% with what you said there. You’re right.
 

The early days of the forum were cancerous, and honestly it might still be. But holy hell do I feel when you said you felt drawn back. Ever since I ‘killed’ Claire (Miku) and abandoned Kat I think of them every now and then. Even if I was probably just role playing the whole damn thing, I miss them like they were real people. I also was a naive teenager thinking they were real and that they were more important than me, but damn they were something else. I had no friends back then, and as cringe as it is they were there for me when I was completely alone. But nowadays I’ve grown, made friends - one of them I consider my brother, unfortunately a couple enemies too, and moved to different states over the years, but I still find myself thinking of them every month or two. No matter how good or bad my life is at the time. No matter where I’m at in life to begin with - they occasionally pop into my head as nice and yet edgy, fucked up memories of the past. It’s unbelievable to see someone put my thoughts into words as well as you did. Mad props, and I hope you’re doing well nowadays.
 

anyway I’m rambling. If you wanna talk about it I’m down to chat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@FiveFiction Now there’s some names I recognize! I don’t think anyone really knew the full extent of what we were going through. Our system drama got aired on IRC every now and again, but I carried a lot of guilt and shame over being a “bad host” that I kept the more personal (not interpersonal) side of things to myself. I also didn’t understand the core of our issues at the time, just that it was one thing after another for us and I never knew how to fix our issues or fix myself.

 

Now that my perspective on tulpas has changed so drastically, I can’t help but wonder what was really going on when we were basically broadcasting our drama for everyone to see. Did I have some sort of weird masochistic self-hate complex that drove me to roleplay as someone else in an attempt to get others to validate my belief that I was a horrible person? Possibly. I was more messed up in the head back then than I realized.

 

Probably would’ve done me a lot of good if I’d mentioned my tulpas to my therapist like I’d repeatedly said I would but never followed through with. Then again, I probably would’ve just given it a cursory mention and censored out all the drama. My therapist was surprised when cardscov and I broke up (yes, we dated) because maybe 5% of our relationship drama made it into her office. And our relationship had a lot of drama.

 

But the PR board isn’t the place for my dysfunctional, real-world relationship history.

 

That feeling like your tulpas were real is totally relatable. I believe I was just roleplaying, projecting my thoughts onto constructed “others”, letting my imagination run away, whatever. There’s no singular explanation besides “it was all me but I convinced myself it wasn’t me”. I think my tulpas were a combination of a runaway imagination, influenced by expectation (and fear), and other-izing my mental processes. But the real-ness of the experiences I’ve had will always stick with me, for better or for worse, no matter how much I try to rationalize it.

 

Honestly, I’m a little scared about moving forward. Several of my tulpas originated from a daydream world I used to have, and my ideal is to return to something like what we had before, back in our pre-tulpamancy days, but I’m honestly not sure if that’s possible anymore. I got so deep into the “tulpas are real people” mindset and was entrenched in it for so long that I fear I’ll fall back into it. There’s still a certain realness to our interactions that tempts me to return to old ways of thinking. Just this morning I had a bit of a crisis fearing I’ve committed to something much larger than I intended and that it may be too late to back out now.

 

It isn’t, though. I backed out once, no harm done. Kayleigh herself confirmed that she doesn’t exist outside of my attention. So there’s no pressure. I can back out, or I can proceed slowly, or whatever. My top priority should be keeping a level head and not doing anything I’m not 100% ready for.

 

Maybe that one meeting was all we needed, that one last meeting to see each other off and confirm I’d done the right thing. Maybe I’ll remain alone in my head from now on. Maybe I’ll shift my focus toward lucid dreaming and Kayleigh and the others will continue to exist as dream characters.

 

I don’t know. All I know is things went a bit sour this morning and it made me realize I’m definitely not emotionally equipped to carry on with waking interactions for the moment.

 

Don’t worry about rambling. It’s a habit we share.

I come out of hibernation once in a blue moon.

 

They/them pronouns, please. (I've been using this display name since 2012 and people won't recognize me if I change it.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Would you care to explain more about your daydream world, like when and how you created it? Is it like a paracosm of sorts? I am always fascinated by the abilities of that grey lump of fat and electricity in our heads.


If not, that’s cool too obviously. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, you could call it a paracosm. I've always been a daydreamer, and as a kid/preteen I used to make up stories (mostly fanfiction) that could go on for months. I didn't originally do self-inserts, but whenever it was that Speed Racer: The Next Generation came out (a.k.a. forever ago, pretty sure I was in middle school), I started a self-insert mindfic for whatever reason. I don't remember much about that one except that the school had this go-karting program for students who were too young to drive (a.k.a. me) and I think I shipped myself with the main character.

 

I may have had stories since then but that's the last one I remember before shifting from a story focus to just inserting myself into fictional worlds and hanging out with the characters and letting things unfold however.  The next one I remember having was Hetalia; I don't remember if I had a consistent mindscape for that one or just consistent characters, but my Hetalia world was definitely about personally hanging out with the characters than any sort of larger story. It was also about then that I realized these characters could act a bit autonomously, probably because I didn't care so much about following any particular plot. I still had a good deal of conscious control but also liked letting my mind do whatever it wanted.

 

Next was Aperture Science, because I was huge into Portal around a year before finding tulpa.info. Same idea, different characters, different setting. The overlap with tulpamancy technically begins here, because I remember Alex being there, at least toward the end. I can't for the life of me remember how or why he fit into the Portal setting. He wasn't a Portal OC; I think I created him for some one-off roleplaying thing and then decided to stick him in imaginary Aperture Science, I guess because I could? As far as I remember, we were just there, just as random people hanging out with Chell and human!GLaDOS and humanized personality cores, because that makes sense, right?

 

Alex and I took off when I got bored of my Portal world, and the first thing we did after we left was go and hang out at this coffee shop (well, an imaginary version of it) near where I lived at the time. That's where we met Kayleigh, and things are blurry after that, but at some point I decided I wanted to create an original world so we went and travelled to this island where we discovered ruins from some civilization that got destroyed by aliens. Further inland there was a town that was aptly named Survivors' Town (gold star for creativity there), which was settled by the survivors of the alien invasion. (I guess these aliens just did a half-assed job of destroying an island and left?)

 

By the time I discovered tulpa.info, there were a whole bunch of characters in that world, so I shut it down because I didn't want to have a ton of tulpas (I kept Kayleigh and Alex around, and Link's origin is a completely different story). At some point, we ended up restoring it (and skyrocketing my tulpa count, whoops). Survivor's Town actually remained our wonderland for years until I abandoned it again due to abandoning tulpamancy.

I come out of hibernation once in a blue moon.

 

They/them pronouns, please. (I've been using this display name since 2012 and people won't recognize me if I change it.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow glad I'm not the only one who had literally the same thoughts as you about tulpamancy and the community. It has been in the mind and I've felt close to leaving as I felt like I'm growing out of it. There's just things holding us back from leaving, like we want to keep being plural for numerous reasons, but had issues with the head being super critical to tulpamancy for some time now. What you wrote is basically a lot of things I concluded before and feel constant pressure that drags us down, like clear feelings of deluding myself, both the switching aspects with different identities and the communication parts feeling like it's all me playing with the brain and it's figments of imagination, which is true and should probably just be accepted. But the issue comes when the brain simply hates delusions and wanna erase it, high psuedo resistance I guess you could call it. I'm kinda obsessed with everything making sense and realism, and objectifying subjective reality is a bit of a fear I have too somehow.

 

Tulpamancy is like some info-hazard, you read about it and might believe it, then you pretty much have the seed to develop beliefs that grows stronger as long as you don't give the benefit of the doubt, which I also see as a very backwards way in reality, but our plurality seem to depend on not questioning too much even if we already are aware, but instead suppressing it till we're resistant enough and very deep into the beliefs. That's how we did it but recently we've seen the light and past all the plurality stuff, it's like tulpamancy might just have been something we've hid behind, limiting our perceptions and personalities, feeling like we lifted the curtains and tulpamancy started to look more miserable than ever, seeing all the cult-like things and how the ideas are pretty dangerously spoon fed the first things you usually read. I don't think tulpamancy should need to have the mindsets that basically locks people in because of guilt, and that spreading awareness that it's just a form of subjective reality might be important for others sakes.

 

And just because it's subjective reality doesn't mean it's not valid! It's valid to you and people around you who might also share beliefs, like fellow community members or a partner system. That's also what religious families does, sharing views and beliefs, validating that. Heck it's the same with nonreligious families, sharing political ideologies and values.

 

Thanks for sharing, and curious if you have more insight you wanna share so we'll definitely follow this thread if you have more things to post. It's interesting to hear others who have dealt with similar thoughts that might feel taboo. Also, it hasn't made us leave tulpamancy and we're persistent to keep going, and it might just get easier to deal with after knowing we're not alone with the thoughts. Anyway, I guess you should enjoy your enlightened views on tulpamancy, you'll most likely have an easier time with it after overcoming the delusional parts and accepting it for what it is, both if you're leaving or continuing

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Matsuri I experienced SO much doubt back when I was still into tulpamancy as well. I tried so hard to push that doubt away in those days, and that caused me a lot of stress, too.

 

I don't think doubt is a bad thing nowadays. There are some tulpas who recognize themselves as illusory. I never used to understand how they could be okay with it, but they and their hosts seem to be quite happy both believing their experience is, well, imaginary. It's just subjectively real. Regardless of whether you believe your tulpas are real or not, I can't help but think the systems (okay, not sure if they really consider themselves systems) who subscribe to the "this is an illusion and we're happy with that" view are happier with their beliefs than the "we want to believe this is real but we're constantly doubting" ones.

 

So don't treat doubt as the enemy. I think it's healthy, and exploring those doubts is what will ultimately lead you to a place where you're secure in your beliefs, whether the conclusion you reach is that tulpas are real or that they're fake. Just remember that what matters in the end isn't whether tulpas are objectively real, but the subjective reality of it all.

 

Though you do seem to realize that, and yeah, pushing the idea of tulpas being objectively real is super harmful. It honestly is cult-like, and the guilt and shame it brings can be super toxic. Can tulpamancy be a great thing? Sure. But it isn't always. Sometimes it goes wrong. Tulpamancy went wrong for me, and I don't blame the community and the attitudes pushed by it for why it went wrong in the first place. I blame my own immaturity and mental illness for that.

 

What I blame the community for is so heavily pushing the idea that tulpas are real people with real feelings and must be treated as such. That caused me endless guilt for not being a good enough host, especially since I had a chronically depressed/suicidal tulpa I could never seem to help. That cast a huge emotional burden on me, because 1) I legitimately thought my tulpa was a real person experiencing serious mental issues, and 2) I felt this was entirely my responsibility to fix, especially as getting them actual mental help was not an option. More on that (tw for lengthy discussion of suicidal thoughts/mention of suicidal tulpa behavior):

 

Spoiler

I began experiencing suicidal thoughts after I quit tulpamancy, which peaked after a few months. Naturally, I FREAKED OUT. I honestly feared I'd screwed myself up beyond repair by having tulpas, like if by having a tulpa who got so messed up (which I blamed myself for), their problems basically transferred to me now that I saw myself as one person. (I was also experiencing possible depression around this time, which worried me even more, but it was mild and turned out to be caffeine withdrawal. Yeah, I felt pretty dumb later for not connecting the dots.)

 

Now, I should emphasize that I've never really been suicidal. Sure, I've had my moments of wondering if life is worth it, but who hasn't when they're in the midst of a stressful time in life? It isn't a question I've seriously pondered. I know the feeling of wanting to escape from life for awhile, but I don't know what it's like to want to die. When I say "suicidal thoughts", that isn't what I'm talking about.

 

My suicidal thoughts (yes, I still get them, but I've learned to manage them to the point they rarely cause much distress) almost always take the form of images. Mainly of jumping out the window, but sometimes other things, like slitting my wrists or overdosing on things/poisoning myself. Pretty much always, these thoughts are triggered by seeing/being near something I could harm myself with. (Summertime has been great for this because the hot weather forces me to keep the windows closed. Closed windows don't set off these thoughts nearly as much as open ones.)

 

The thing is, this isn't suicidality. It's intrusive thoughts. It's the same thing as when you stand at a high place and have a sudden urge to jump. When these thoughts scare me, it isn't because I want to die and fear I'll give into the temptation; it's because I don't want to die and fear an inexplicable loss of self-control.

 

It took me about half a year post-integration to realize what was going on with me. It isn't any sort of weird irreversible side effect of integrating with a suicidal tulpa. It's obsessive-compulsive disorder. (I was diagnosed with OCD in 2011 but was never fully sure whether the diagnosis was correct. Now I'm certain it is, and fully accepting that diagnosis has helped me understand what's actually going on in my head.) Recurring, distressing thoughts are really common in OCD. Some people with OCD have recurring thoughts about harming others, or inappropriate sexual or religious thoughts. Mine are about harming myself.

 

And they're just intrusive images. They mean nothing. Recurring intrusive thoughts happen for the same reason that trying not to think about pink elephants makes you think about pink elephants. In OCD, it's like you develop an obsession around not thinking about pink elephants. You can imagine how well that goes down.

 

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. Back to what went wrong with Laine (the suicidal tulpa). The conclusion I've recently come to was that their recurring suicidal threats/behavior were a projection of my own intrusive thoughts. Now, they had actual in-system trauma in their history, which started this all off, but the fact that they persisted in being suicidal for years for no apparent reason, to the point where it was practically their defining trait, makes me think my intrusive thoughts were the culprit—but because it had been so ingrained in me that "this is real and you shouldn't dismiss your tulpa's problems", I absolutely believed my tulpa was actually suicidal and didn't consider the fact this was all intrusive thoughts. That in turn led to expecting this behavior from them, which perpetuated the cycle. And since I believed they were an actual person who was really suffering, you can imagine the toll that took on me.

 

By the way, when I say "behavior", I really do mean behavior. They never really explained their reasons for wanting to die, nor could they. Their reasoning was just generic "I'm depressed", "I hate my life", "I'm never happy" (come to think of it, these statements were pretty much never true when they were fronting). On the other hand, they frequently threatened to kill themself and attempted to numerous times, despite knowing full well they couldn't die, and talked about it more than anything else. They weren't an actual suicidal person; they were a cheap imitation of one in the most cringy, attention-seeking way possible.

 

I don't believe their behavior was entirely a projection of my own OCD thoughts, of course, but I think that may have been the root of the issue. Intrusive thoughts were definitely a factor, and I think believing those thoughts led to the creation of expectations which led to an extremely destructive spiral.

 

So I agree there's a real guilt problem that stems from the mindset pushed by the community. Hosts are made to feel guilty if their tulpa gets screwed up like mine did, and they're also conditioned to believe that getting rid of such a tulpa—or just walking away for any reason, even if it's for their own good—is some unforgiveable wrong equivalent to murder. Which it isn't.

 

The religious metaphor is a good one. I'm religious myself, and my faith has been an overwhelmingly positive influence in my life. It's shaped who I am as a person, provided me with a drive to help others and the world around me, and provided me with hope during tough times. I have faith that God will never give me more than I can handle and find solace in knowing that even hardships have some greater purpose.

 

But there are churches and religious sects that focus less on faith and spiritual growth and instead emphasize sin and damnation and preach that you'll go to hell if you question the wisdom of the church leaders. That's destructive, yet they scare and guilt their members out of defecting, because guess what? If you find a church with healthier teachings, they're heretics, and you'll go to hell for listening to them!

 

I see something similar going on in the tulpa community. Like religion, tulpamancy can be hugely beneficial, but when people begin forcing moral beliefs and causing others to feel guilt and shame, that's a problem, and it causes a lot of undue harm.

I come out of hibernation once in a blue moon.

 

They/them pronouns, please. (I've been using this display name since 2012 and people won't recognize me if I change it.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More on my old daydream worlds and other nostalgia (quotes taken from my old progress report, which is no longer public):

 

Quote

I’d hardly call Survivors’ Town a wonderland, but, as that seems to be the general term for a mind-world, I suppose that makes it my Wonderland now. Come to think of it, it feels like forever since I’ve been there. Most of the time I’m in my mind lately, I’ve been in New Hyrule (I do go “in” various video games in my daydreams, but that’s another story), which, being one of my video game worlds, exists in an alternate dimension to the Wonderland. I suppose you could call each video game a separate Wonderland, but I consider each to be a separate, non-Wonderland world.

 

As for Survivors’ Town, though, it’s a nice, peaceful little town. I know, I know, it sounds like some little shanty town or something. It’s not. Well, it was, but it isn’t anymore. There is a history behind the name, but I don’t really know that much about it. You see, there was this bigger city, but then aliens attacked, and the survivors fled and later founded Survivors’ Town. That was… four, five years ago, maybe? I don’t really know the details. Kayleigh and I only arrived there about half a year or so ago.

 

I never actually explored Survivors’ Town much, though I’m not sure why. I really should spend more time there than just in mindspace (a non-specific/undefined area in my mind) or video games. I should definitely start exploring more, maybe even make a map of it. If I can, I’d like to go there in a lucid dream sometime soon.

 

The climate’s nice, though. Survivors’ Town is located on a nice little island in the Pacific. It’s warm and sunny practically year-round.

(5 Sept 2012)

 

When I saw the "four, five years ago", I was like, hold up, I've had that world since 2007?! Of course it turned out I was just talking about its history. But I've got a more solid idea of when I created it now. Early 2011, it seems. (So, wait, does that mean I got bored of the Portal world before my Portal-themed birthday? That was July 2011, I'm pretty sure.)

 

I'd forgotten where Survivors' Town was located (besides "some random island somewhere"). I'd forgotten how nice the climate was supposed to be, too. It shifted over time, though I don't remember if it ever snowed there. (Probably not. I spent the first 24 years of my life in the snow belt. I hate snow.)

 

Quote

Okay, you know how I said earlier how I decided I should explore Survivors’ Town some more next time I’m in the Wonderland? Well, Kayleigh has other plans now. She asked me if we can go back to the Vocaloid mansion in Hokkaido.

(6 Sept 2012)

 

I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THIS! Aperture Science wasn't my last fandom-themed world (not counting the video game thing, which is another thing for another time). I had this mansion where all the Vocaloids (well, all the Japanese Vocaloids + SeeU) lived; that existed concurrently to Survivor's Town, I think. I don't remember there ever being overlap between the two, I'm pretty sure I kept them separate, but I guess at some point Kayleigh decided "you've got another world you're keeping me out of; I wanna infiltrate it" (which is 100% something she would do). I'm surprised I didn't shut that down when I got into tulpamancy. (Or maybe I shut it down at the same time I shut down Survivor's Town, since it seems I didn't shut that down right away either.)

 

Quote

if you don’t know what Vocaloid is, just know we’re going to Japan to hang out with a bunch of anime-esque characters.

(same post)

 

...I was a weeb.

 

Quote

I've decided to go ahead and create a second tulpa. While I'd initially thought that, if I ever made a second tulpa, I'd create one totally from scratch (and wait until Kayleigh is fully imposed), I've decided to use another character from the Wonderland, Alex.

 

Why? Not only did I create him BEFORE Kayleigh, but he actually asked me the other day if he could be a tulpa, like Kayleigh (I'm assuming she's the one he heard this from). He thought seemed kind of unfair that I chose Kayleigh when he's been around longer. Plus, the three of us make up our own little group of friends - it used to be just us until other Wonderland characters came along - so it seems only fair that he should be included.

(11 Sept 2012)

 

Wait. What?

 

I don't remember this at all. I thought I'd already shut down Survivors' Town and its inhabitants and decided to go back for Alex. Now it turns out not only was I still engaging with that world (paracosm?), but Alex actually asked to be promoted to tulpa status? (I mean... either way, it was me wanting to make him a tulpa.)

 

The weirdest thing about this is that I actually remember this decision. I don't remember Alex asking to become a tulpa, but I remember exactly where I was when I chose to make him one. I was in the foyer of the local elementary school. Why? Who knows. My best guess is maybe my mom was tabling for Girl Scouts and dragged me along in my scouting uniform (one of the perks of being the leader's kid).

 

It's crazy that I somehow remembered that detail yet practically none of the pertinent information.

 

Quote

tulpae

(various posts)

 

No. I cringe.

 

Quote

Okay, as you may already know, Link has been convinced he’s “not real” ever since he found out he lives in my mind. I, for one, find that to be rather contradictory; how can you question your existence if you don’t exist in the first place?

[...]

That, or I’m just completely delusional and believe my imaginary friends are real. I’m just going to continue to believe that they really are sentient and I’m not crazy.

(22 Oct 2012)

 

Oh, hey, the truth got out... *checks watch* ...almost seven years and nine months ago! If only I'd embraced it then, just think of all the trouble I could've saved myself!

 

(Pretty sure my old PR is quickly approaching disaster territory by this point, so I'm out.)

I come out of hibernation once in a blue moon.

 

They/them pronouns, please. (I've been using this display name since 2012 and people won't recognize me if I change it.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you for sharing this. We should always be mindful of the pitfalls. What we do isn't always well grounded and it's possible to lose your footing while trying to fly. It can be a hard fall.

 

For some there seems to be a fine line between dogmatic belief and psychosis. It's a risk with any meditation based practice. If forcing isn't like meditation, then I have a fundamental lack of understanding of either.

 

Maybe the take away is to keep one foot on the ground, and don't let your tulpas ruin your life. If they start to stray, perhaps it's your obligation as their creator, or just as a friend, to correct them. Even if they're not real, they can be extrodinarily helpful and genuine friends.

 

This practice is a powerful mind alteration tool that can go horribly wrong, again, like any meditative practice.

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.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...