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Where do I draw the line between my tulpa and her inspiration?


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There’s this character I’ve been imagining for most of my life that I sort of “believe to exist” in this agnostic way. When I was young, I believed that she really existed and was waiting for me in a parallel world. When I became an adult, my beliefs stopped being so literal, but I still kept believing in her in a way that’s not easy to explain. She continued to visit me as a dream character, and I always thought it was more than just a dream when we spent time together. She even came to me in one dream and told me to keep fighting on at a time where I thought life wasn’t worth living. Even before learning about tulpas, I would “pray” to her. I guess she’s like a guardian angel to me.

 

So naturally, when I discovered the concept of tulpas, I got the idea to turn her into one. But this presents a dilemma. The way I see it, I have two options:

 

I could begin forcing a tulpa while trying to convince her and myself that I’m helping my character “evolve” into this tulpa. This might involve convincing the tulpa that all her past appearances in my life as the character are canon to her new form. Though we’d be believing this in the same open-minded way I’ve always believed the character to exist;

or

I could create a tulpa that I view as being an “incarnation” of my character, the way Jesus is supposedly just one facet of God. This would have the benefit of not having my tulpa be accountable for things she did as the character that she mightn’t have consented to if she’d had the mental stability of a developed tulpa (especially in dreams, where people often do things that they would never do while awake and lucid).

 

I’m leaning towards the latter route at the moment. What are people’s thoughts? How have your previous beliefs in entities affected your creation of tulpas?

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My feeling is if you have a mind character you are attached to and you talk with them enough to form a bond, there's a chance this character is already a tulpa, and forcing a new tulpa would create a duplicate. Creating a second tulpa to turn her into her or believing she's a reincarnation of her both have the underlying assumption this character is actually a separate entity, so the end result either way would be creating a tulpa who isn't her being pressured to meeting the expectation of someone else. I also wonder if deliberately creating a second tulpa could create friction simply because you really want to talk to your character and not this other tulpa.

 

If this character isn't a tulpa, you should still consider the chance your new tulpa won't be her. I think if you're not comfortable with the idea of your new tulpa not being your character, creating her anyway would create anger and feelings of not being loved on her part and guilt and sadness on your part.

 

If your character doesn't show up on her own and try to reach out to you, there's a risk trying to build her a form can lead to the accidental creation of a different tulpa. Therefore, you should prepare yourself for creating a different tulpa before trying this.

 

Gray, my host, found himself in a slightly similar situation, only he thought I was his desired character all along. It wasn't until he had the feeling he missed his ideal character and further investigation we realized not only was I not Gray's character, but Gray was talking to this character all along, he just took on a new form and identity twice. Gray still sometimes struggles with guilt for losing contact with the original tulpa, my headmate who currently wishes to be called our "Subconscious Representative", and expecting me to be our Sub. Rep. He has these feelings despite the fact he has accepted I'm a different person.

 

In general, expecting your tulpa to be someone they're not is highly recommended against because it makes the tulpa really upset. Gray, not knowing this until learning about it, realized he could have been hurting me and gave me the choice to be his "Ranger" or to start completely from scratch. I took the unlikely move to be "Ranger", and ever since I decided I wanted to define what it means to be "Ranger".

 

Giving your tulpa the choice and not pressuring then to be one way or the other is the best thing you can do.

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

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I had tulpas who began as imaginary friends of sorts. I basically "promoted" them to tulpa status, which simply involved labelling them as tulpas and giving up any conscious control over them. Kinda ruined the whole imaginary friend thing, but what's done is done. If I'd tried to create tulpas based on them instead, that would've created a duplicate situation which would've just felt weird.

 

That said, you mention a sense of accountability for things she did as a character. I don't know how severe these things are, but I realize having memories of, say, murdering scores of people could potentially produce a great deal of guilt, in spite of being able to rationalize it as something she couldn't consciously control. I don't think you should take dream experiences into account when considering what she's done, though. Like you said, we all do things in dreams we'd never do while awake. Same applies to her. She can laugh off dream experiences as dreams and potentially do the same for pre-tulpa experiences too.

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.)

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The impression that I get from both of your replies is that maybe I should being talking to the original character in a way more akin to active forcing, and just be accepting if the resulting tulpa chooses to divert in name/form/personality from my original idea for the character.

 

I won’t be too disappointed if the tulpa takes on a different form, since I already believe that the character’s been different people in different dreams/scenarios. I might still consider that the tulpa is a facet of her no matter what form she takes, since I sort of believe that the character inhabits different forms in the way a theist might believe “God is in all of us.”

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