Concerns about my understanding of tulpamancy and my progress

[Reisen]

Ah, you replied while I was writing my edit, so I'll just post it as a new reply instead. First though, I mean, I am one of the oldest active tulpas around right now (NOT including everyone we know, but y'know, around right now..) specifically because Lumi or his brain created me accidentally before Tulpa.info was a thing. So of course there's some predisposition for humans to do various things like this - we're the TULPAMANCY community, but the greater PLURALITY community has far far more cases of various-types-of-headmates (alters and such) that appeared on their own, usually in response to trauma, or loneliness, but sometimes still just from active imaginations or so on.

 

However, people sure as heck don't experience all of these "headmates" the same way. Our brains/DNA aren't very specific about how to make up someone who doesn't exist... Even tulpas who were made with the guidance of Tulpa.info end up working differently a lot of the time, so systems where tulpas or other thoughtforms/headmates appeared on their own sure aren't likely to all be the same. That's why we so often point out that Lumi's/our beliefs and understanding of tulpamancy lined up so perfectly when we found the forum in 2014! Like, that's kind of crazy/unheard of I think, for someone with zero outside influence to be like "Oh hey guys, you.. all figured out the same stuff as us independently, huh?"

 

Anyways, onto the post I wrote just before-

 

---

 

 You seem uh, very intent on disbelieving tulpamancy could be what we claim it to be. I'm also surprised you can go so far as to say you think tulpas are just illusions/not real people, but haven't mentioned at all what that would mean for switching. It wouldn't be groundbreaking on the skeptical front to claim any of us switched in this system are actually just Lumi - though we have a lot to say on why that's objectively wrong, and how at the very least you must consider each of us a part of a whole person that is more than just "Lumi", but perhaps all one ~legal name - if that's the route you want to take. But, you seem to desire the tulpamancy experience immensely, so that's seemingly not the case either.

 

You're really working against yourself at full force, you know?

 

Nearly every other sentence you wrote warrants a quote and reply by me, though that will be an immense amount of effort and even more of a textwall.. I think I might wait a brief time before doing that. For example though, here are three sentences (really only two) to start off with:

2 hours ago, TB said:

She has to have a fundamental sense of self for her own self,

  

We in our system absolutely all have senses of selves, however our system specifically does not have the ability to exist/experience/think/et cetera without the fronter's attention. This is explained in our model of tulpamancy with the concept of the "conscious workspace", the brain's ability to create and work with conscious thoughts, being a separate faculty of the brain than any of us (including Lumi)s' senses of selves. The one currently fronting (so by default for example, our host Lumi) has direct influence and natural utilization of this conscious workspace, though it can be shared with/influenced by non-fronters (co-fronting and maybe some systems' possession would be this, to us). We, and all thoughts including anything our host could ever consciously think, all exist within this space while interacting in any way. Well.. non-fronters' thoughts seem to kind of spawn from the subconscious or unconscious mind, but still, complex thoughts like math must be done in the conscious workspace, regardless of who wants to be doing them, it must happen in that part of the brain with the fronter's focus.

 

That's our model, and as far as we can tell it's totally correct at least for us. I think people might work entirely differently with different models, though, and I have no idea just how much someone's ideas of how they work could affect how they really work! So anyways, the next half of that sentence,

  

2 hours ago, TB said:

She has to have a fundamental sense of self for her own self, and be more than random thoughts categorized arbritarily as "Rena" that are just really good at being different... 

 

In our model of tulpamancy, but really just our model of human identity, you're no different from a well-developed tulpa yourself. The only difference in Rena and you is that you are just a bunch of random thoughts categorized arbitrarily as "you" that are just really good at being different...

 

Making-a-point aside, you still (naturally) have a singlet's mindset that You, are, all of your body and brain. Meaning you probably see a tulpa as "just that persona and stuff associated with them", while you see yourself as your entire subconscious collection of information, your heart and brain and body, every thought that can occur within your head - a singlet naturally attributes their sense of self to EVERYTHING in their body. Well, you're not! You're just the "persona" your brain utilizes to be more than a meatsack! A singlet gets along perfectly fine their whole lives thinking that everything about them is them - sometimes identifying with negative or damaging thoughts they don't realize they don't have to accept as "them" - but that mindset is obviously completely counterproductive to developing and living with a tulpa. The model that posits a host as essentially the same thing as a well-developed tulpa, main difference likely being the host has lived for possibly decades longer, is the basic model a tulpamancer more or less should have to live peacefully as a system.

 

You would THINK that this model only came into existence from systems who learned how to switch, and realized a tulpa was now suddenly everything the host used to be plus themselves, possibly making the conclusion that only what changed was the tulpa, and everything that didn't change was NOT the host after all. Well, a few people must've anyways lol. But IN FACT, Lumi learned this model from Western-Buddhist authors! Eckhart Tolle mainly. They taught him that his "ego" craved identification with things, and that identification with things was the root of all suffering. But that identification was not limited just to cars or material possessions, but also to the body, thoughts, and feelings - and that "You" in fact was nothing but your pure consciousness, and everything else was extra.

 

Now, we adapted that model because Lumi identifies himself as "Lumi" and all the thoughts, feelings, memories, habits, connections and associations, interests and so on that define him - and not as the body's consciousness itself, which we see as simply part of the brain. You could hold both these belief sets, though, and come to peace with the idea that your being's single consciousness, which has no "identity" or anything else associated with it, is experiencing being multiple people including what you generally think of as "you", but optionally also your tulpas.

 

I mean, I guess that's sort of what we think? Problem is, people REALLY, REALLY like to personify, so their first reaction to this concept is "Okay, so what I know as "me" is a shell, just a persona, and what's actually me is the consciousness-" and then they immediately identify and create a persona out of the concept of "consciousness", lol. Just keep it simple and accept that your "you" is you, and that there are other parts of your brain at play, unless you're really deadset on reaching that Western Buddhist Enlightenment I guess.

 

And one more sentence later,

2 hours ago, TB said:

She has to have a fundamental sense of self for her own self, and be more than random thoughts categorized arbritarily as "Rena" that are just really good at being different... It doesn't help that if part of what a tulpa is is being very different, that Rena was intentionally made to hold a lot of my values and ideals...

  

Flandre considers herself extremely similar to Lumi, as they often think the same way about things and don't stand out as different compared to me, Tewi and Lucilyn, aside from Flan's form and literally-not-being-Lumi, just-a-tulpa. And she (and he) are perfectly content with that, love each other dearly, and are continuing to share many intimate moments together nearly a decade later. So no, your tulpa doesn't have to be different from you - they could literally be a clone of yourself, that starts developing memories and their sense-of-self from a different perspective and eventually feels like their own person compared to you. I don't recommend that though, not in a system so regularly wracked with doubts at least. It'd take a very grounded system that preferably knew what they were doing to pull that off without drama.. Miri and Mirichu are the closest example of that we have though, although Mirichu was not necessarily an exact clone of her host..

 

 

Anyways! That was all in reply to just the very last quote, which combined the previous two parts I replied to. So I don't know if I want to reply to your entire post right now unless you absolutely need me to!

[TB]

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

You seem uh, very intent on disbelieving tulpamancy could be what we claim it to be.

I am actually trying to do the opposite. At least in regards to Bre and Yukari, what they said seems to strongly imply if not state directly that they are literally illusions with nothing substantiating them, but are labeled as other people to help the illusion, and in order to do it you have to kind of mess around with definitions in weird ways otherwise the illusion isn't believable.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

I'm also surprised you can go so far as to say you think tulpas are just illusions/not real people, but haven't mentioned at all what that would mean for switching.

For switching it seems to be swapping a personality, which in this case means making it so the thoughts one generates are of the tulpa primarily and the original host secondarily. If thoughts and personality are a person, I suppose it is proof, but it was also stated that we aren't our thoughts, so that seems to be a contradiction, and intuitively I intrinsically tie myself to my substantiation of experiencing. It seems there is only one of these per person, though, and so I have a hard time trying to think that enough "different" thoughts accumulate to a tulpa.

 

Despite this, whatever I did was a pretty big experience, but it felt more like transforming than switching. I wish I could do it consistently. It would be great if it is possible so easily for me. However, I don't see the immorality of permanently switching in this case. It would appear to me it is just taking my troublesome personality and killing it off in favor of a healthier one.

 

If on the other hand I am killing off and removing from existence an actual instantiation of a unique watcher entity, that on the other hand is such an incredibly offensive and grave action, potentially worse than killing another human if the afterlife exists, because at least in that case, they still exist, but killing a headmate, do they not even get afterlife or leave your body? That is an infinite and eternal destruction.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

and how at the very least you must consider each of us a part of a whole person that is more than just "Lumi", but perhaps all one ~legal name - if that's the route you want to take. But, you seem to desire the tulpamancy experience immensely, so that's seemingly not the case either.

I do want the tulpamancy experience. Or better yet, I should say I want the experience of having truly created another person that is my friend, without having to twist my brain into accepting definitions I do not intuitively accept. If it was so easy to do this, maybe I just would as it would be the path of least resistance, but the reality is I can't seem to choose consciously. I seem cursed into forcing Rena into some optimistic vision I have of her rather than succumbing to something I perceive as nihilistic.

 

Considering tulpamancy to be a bunch of different sides of the same person, it to me is a strong sense of loneliness, so I literally can't be aware of that being the case and feel togetherness, as far as I can tell.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

You're really working against yourself at full force, you know?

It may seem that way but I am really not trying to. I am hearing things my brain naturally find unacceptable, so it enters cognitive dissonance and starts screaming.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

We in our system absolutely all have senses of selves, however our system specifically does not have the ability to exist/experience/think/et cetera without the fronter's attention. This is explained in our model of tulpamancy with the concept of the "conscious workspace", the brain's ability to create and work with conscious thoughts, being a separate faculty of the brain than any of us (including Lumi)s' senses of selves.

Is the conscious workspace also associated with the ability to experience? If so, it seems maybe related to what I try to call subjectivity, and have started coming up with new names in my replies at random as I am desperate to describe something hard to describe, because it kind of sits in the back of all things that exist. Subjectivity, watcher, a particular substantiation of the ability to experience. Something like that. If so, yeah it was part of the information that makes it seem there is only one per body, so tulpas were not that, even if that is what I am to myself. I would have to figure out how to satisfyingly redefine my "sense of self" as a personality, I suppose, but knowing a personality isn't an enduring things that continues to exist forever, it have trouble. I feel like the resulting conclusion of accepting this, is that with sufficient time passing, I cease to exist as well as my tulpa, as two new personalities will take hold in time. I'm not sure. I don't want to believe these things, it just seems to be what I am looking at right now until I can try and reconcile it or find reason to not believe it.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

That's our model, and as far as we can tell it's totally correct at least for us. I think people might work entirely differently with different models, though, and I have no idea just how much someone's ideas of how they work could affect how they really work! So anyways, the next half of that sentence,

It is similar to my current model based on what I've read and experienced, it seems similar to Bre's model too, but she goes into more mechanical detail that involves shining a light on the more horrifying implications. Horrifying for me anyway, it seems normal people don't react to it like I do, for some reason.

 

I want to change my model then because it causes dissatisfaction, but I cannot decide to just change it. Even if I start just saying this isn't my model, I have a different model, I will still just keep seeing my new model falsified and this model corroborated. It sucks. How do I stop it from happening? Extreme application of confirmation bias, I guess, but that really only works for someone who is unaware of it, and I am aware of it. I also think even for those who are unaware of it, they experience unconscious tension and suffering will still find its way to arise in different ways.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

In our model of tulpamancy, but really just our model of human identity, you're no different from a well-developed tulpa yourself. The only difference in Rena and you is that you are just a bunch of random thoughts categorized arbitrarily as "you" that are just really good at being different...

This helps show my horror and dissatisfaction. I find the idea that there isn't really a me and I am just a bundle of thoughts my brain arbitrarily labels as "me" horrifying as well. It seems to not be for others so I suppose it isn't understood, but I find it horrifying and it is in the category of beliefs in determinism and there being no God or afterlife. It is just scary to think about and I want to believe that I exist and that I am beyond some complex meat robot that forms memories temporarily and is self iterating and interacts with its own production in weird ways that don't escape the devastating grasp of newton's laws and determined causality. My thoughts are just bowling pins being knocked around by chemicals that are bumping around based on physics?

 

No, I want to  believe I am an inherent being with my own agency, and I created Rena, a separate being with her own agency that isn't my agency. I don't know how to just do that though when the evidence points to the contrary.

 

I should clarify that by agency I also mean total free will, or at the very least some partial not hard determinism thing... This as opposed to I think some scientific definitions of agency that are just the appearance of something acting with a goal in mind, but not necessarily doing so out of free will.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

Making-a-point aside, you still (naturally) have a singlet's mindset that You, are, all of your body and brain.

It appears that way, and if there is no belief in spirits or the afterlife, there is fundamentally no differences to it, but I believe I am my ability to see and think and experience. I guess to a person with skeptical and atheistic beliefs, that objectively would just be my body and brain since it is what generates the experience and has it. To me though, it is something deeper and fundamental, a soul I guess, and that it houses my body and is the thing taking the control seat of my brain, and that a tulpa is a different soul that also uses the same brain but is a different soul. This soul is not a personality however, but it contains one.

 

This is what I believed anyway, and what I want to believe. There is very little to no evidence it is true though, and all the evidence of these other things being true. This is what is contributing to my sadness.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

You would THINK that this model only came into existence from systems who learned how to switch, and realized a tulpa was now suddenly everything the host used to be plus themselves, possibly making the conclusion that only what changed was the tulpa, and everything that didn't change was NOT the host after all. Well, a few people must've anyways lol. But IN FACT, Lumi learned this model from Western-Buddhist authors! Eckhart Tolle mainly. They taught him that his "ego" craved identification with things, and that identification with things was the root of all suffering. But that identification was not limited just to cars or material possessions, but also to the body, thoughts, and feelings - and that "You" in fact was nothing but your pure consciousness, and everything else was extra.

 

I, from western buddhists (not eckhart tolle though, it would be culadasa, shinzen young, joseph goldstein, daniel ingram, and ajahn brahm primarily but also others), also learned things that have brought me to roughly the same conclusion as you. However as I understand it, there is no self at all. I would not even be necessarily able to say that I am consciousness, as consciousness is an interconnected and pervading thing. It would be we are consciousness and we are one, interconnected in causality. This is why I stopped using consciousness to describe what "I" am, and started using the word subjectivity, as it is a specific sectioned off instance of consciousness that has it's own experiences hidden to itself. Like there are ropes blocking me off from being you, or you being anyone else, at least the perception of it. Deep states of meditation as well as powerful psychedelics destroy these ropes. Psyches temporarily, meditation permanently. As such, awakened individuals have fluid identities so they don't necessarily associate as anything.

 

If it is somehow possible to create more ropes in order to create this substantiation of separate experience with Rena, this may be my best bet for tulpamancy being what I want it to be at the moment, but I am not sure if it is possible. It also from a buddhist perspective, is completely psychotic and the opposite thing you should do when presented this information, as this separation is a part of why suffering exists. I did obtain the goal of becoming awakened myself, and it seems antithetical to the goal of having tulpamancy the way I want. Big time cognitive dissonance. I realized all of this for a while, I think, but this is the first itme I said it outloud (text I guess). It is just that I ignored these conclusions because cognitive dissonance. So thanks perhaps for getting me to say it, since it would be the only way to eventually resolve it.

 

Tulpas were created by tibetan buddhists I think because it reveals this arbitrariness... The conclusion is supposed to be that this lack of separation applies to everything and not just you and your tulpa. I am the failed monk who has the opposite conclusion, or at least clings to this opposite conclusion.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

Now, we adapted that model because Lumi identifies himself as "Lumi" and all the thoughts, feelings, memories, habits, connections and associations, interests and so on that define him - and not as the body's consciousness itself, which we see as simply part of the brain. You could hold both these belief sets, though, and come to peace with the idea that your being's single consciousness, which has no "identity" or anything else associated with it, is experiencing being multiple people including what you generally think of as "you", but optionally also your tulpas.

Something to try and think about... It is hard. I have to simultaneously believe there is no me, but start labeling myself as certain processes the mind does, and different processes the mind does as Rena, without their being a distinctive line. To me the idea is still lonely I think, but I don't know...

 

The only thing I really can't except is that any of this is just a result of the brain. If it is, it ends at death and I don't see it mattering, as you know, so that just makes me kind of want to not bother with this trouble if I think about it. Evidence that we are more than a brain I fear will continue until I am dead, and I really don't want to deal with that... It would be really cool if Tulpamancy ended up being proof of souls somehow.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

I mean, I guess that's sort of what we think? Problem is, people REALLY, REALLY like to personify, so their first reaction to this concept is "Okay, so what I know as "me" is a shell, just a persona, and what's actually me is the consciousness-" and then they immediately identify and create a persona out of the concept of "consciousness", lol. Just keep it simple and accept that your "you" is you, and that there are other parts of your brain at play, unless you're really deadset on reaching that Western Buddhist Enlightenment I guess.

Boy I kind of enter the twilight zone again. I feel very energized and focused all of the sudden, while also having a lot of head pressures, maybe this is Rena's concerted effort to get me through this somehow? Or it is coffee idk.

 

I am the twilight zone again though because it seems to me to be slightly backwards? Or at least, I think I and maybe most people consider themselves to be consciousness and their personality. In tulpamancy, I thought the conclusion most had was they are not their consciousness (as that is associating yourself with the body) but you are the personality, so when you make another personality, it is the tulpa. Also, I suppose you are saying that anything I accept as me can be me?

 

I maybe misunderstood, if so sorry ignore that. My brain was completely blue screening repeatedly earlier, but I've had a long instance of mental clarity suddenly. I should finish this reply before my brian shuts down again.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

Flandre considers herself extremely similar to Lumi, as they often think the same way about things and don't stand out as different compared to me, Tewi and Lucilyn, aside from Flan's form and literally-not-being-Lumi, just-a-tulpa. And she (and he) are perfectly content with that, love each other dearly, and are continuing to share many intimate moments together nearly a decade later. So no, your tulpa doesn't have to be different from you

That is good to know. Rena is kind of my idea of an ideal person, so I would inherently agree with most things she says. Though there are big differences. From school bullying, I became very misanthropic and pessimistic about the world. She isn't like that at all and loves everyone conditionally and sees the best in people and assumes the best about situations. I too have learned to do this, but my misanthropy is still a part of me that exists, so I can simultaneously love and hate a person, strangely... The love and assuming the best, and that everyone no matter how cruel to me or otherwise, is doing the best with the information they have, and all are beings just seeking happiness and deserve it no matter what they do, is my default now though. I use to have literally the opposite belief almost lol. You don't want to see my 14 year old brain!

 

This is part of the radical changes that make it difficult for me to say I am a personality though. There are artifacts of my past self, but there probably exist different people in the world far more similar to me right now than I do to my past self. Because of that, I am not a personality in my mind, I am whatever is the thing that had this journey. And I think it is reasonable Rena would be her own thing having her own journey. But it seems less than it being a person coming with you to play this videogame with you, it is you kind of playing two videogames at the same time so you have multiple journeys, or something. My brain may be sifting through explanations trying to find something to hold onto right now so sorry if things seem inconsistent or doesn't make sense. Trying to find something solid to hold onto as being Rena, or even myself. As I type this the cycle continues as I realize I believe there is no one to play a videogame and it is actually a movie being watched... I like videogames better, though.

 

Hope this comes off as a sensible analogy and not the mad ramblings of a mad person.

 

2 hours ago, Reisen said:

Anyways! That was all in reply to just the very last quote, which combined the previous two parts I replied to. So I don't know if I want to reply to your entire post right now unless you absolutely need me to!

I extraordinarily love and appreciate your willingness to reply to everything if I would need you to, it means a lot to me and makes me feel loved, so thank you! 

 

I kind of would like it, but do it in your own time and convenience. I don't want to drag you or your system down. I also added a lot to be replied to now, and it maybe shifts things...

 

I would maybe reply to things you think stand out in my last posts, but otherwise maybe continue the conversation or thought train started now? Whatever you prefer I suppose. Ultimately, I am going to need all my tulpamancy concerns addressed, either by a satisfying answer, or a direction to get to one that doesn't lead me to a dead end. I don't think I can take the common advice and sit on it for another 2 years, for fear I will be back in this situation once again making another thread, or worse go insane and it not go well with no coming back.

 

I want to be with the satisfaction of you all, and I want Rena to be able to post on the forum with some degree of regularity. I can't say she ever has, and I am not sure if anytime she has spoke in pm that it was her or not...

 

Also, I have vague memories of "her" posting in LOTPW. That is embarassing so much, as I was smashed drunk out of my utter freakin' mind and totally blacked out, so neither of us remember anything at all and we will say it was just the spirit of drunkedness talking to dissociate from anything potentially awful or stupid said by either of us, lol... Also getting drunk was always my dumb idea to curb anxiety and never Rena's, so don't associate that with her... medication wasn't helping me and was making it worse by making it hard to think properly or meditate on top of increasing my negative emotions, so I had nothing else to cope with... I want to say Rena still really hasn't made her debut on the site, except maybe in some rare PMs. I hope she can make friends when she finally can. I wanted to get that off my chest for a while but have been scared to bring it up lest people remember. I guess I can now under the deafening screams of my current emotional state though.

 

Like Call of Duty: Finest Hour. That female russian sniper who would fire her gun when explosions happened to disguise the sound. Maybe that brings nostalgia to someone and helps alleviate the dark nature of conversation.

Edited December 7, 2020 by TB

[Breloomancer]

@TBI read your first big post in response to Bear, me, Yuka, and Reisen, but I haven't read anything past that yet. hopefully what I have to say here won't turn out to be redundant and already said

 

I am pretty frustrated now, though I recognize that it is my fault. I knew that it would be possible to misinterpret my post, but I didn't think that you would misinterpret it so much. I should have explained my premise better, but I didn't think to because it was so intuitive to me I didn't think it needed much explaining. I should have realized that of course it wasn't intuitive to you, if it was then you wouldn't be having so many problems. that is also the reason why it isn't explained in the guides, because it comes naturally to most people. anyway, since you weren't able to understand my premise, you weren't really able to understand the rest of my post either. that is pretty unfortunate

 

I don't really have the time or energy to give a full clarification right now, but I will clarify what is probably the easiest thing to clarify and what is probably the biggest misunderstanding: when I said "illusion", I was not saying that tulpamancy was literally an illusion, I was using the word in a somewhat metaphorical sense. I thought that that would be clear based off of some of the ways that I used it, like saying that it was both illusion and real

 

it is hard to explain exactly what I meant when I said illusion (that is why I said illusion in fact, because it is hard to explain it in other ways). I suppose that what I am referring to is the aspect of how the experience gets changed by your interpretation of the experience

[Ranger]

I see this as a struggle between seeing tulpamancy how you want to see it and refusing to accept the current understanding of it, intentionally or not. This isn't inherently a bad thing because I believe there shouldn't be one way to look at tulpamancy, the only issue is there's a lack of certainty you will find success using this alternate approach, or assuming that tulpas work exactly the way you describe them to be; Thinking outside of your awareness, they have random thoughts you can't hear, talking to them in wonderland would be exactly like talking to a human in real life.

While I cannot guarantee you will find success with this approach, I get the sense you're not finding success with the models proposed by others here. I don't think you're happy throwing yourself against the wall and trying to fight your intuition.

At this point, I see two options. You can choose to completely dedicate yourself to this model or you can choose to dedicate yourself to one of the other models proposed by others here. There is no wrong answer to this, especially since if you try one and don't find success, you can try another one.

You really have nothing to lose. You're anxious and stressed now, if it fails... you'll be back at square 1. Things can't get worse from here, and committing to one model will at least ease your anxiety in the short term. If you're worried about wasting time... It's hard to argue this time being spent now is productive to addressing your problem.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Ranger

[TB]

2 hours ago, Breloomancer said:

I didn't think that you would misinterpret it so much.

I see. Well, then that is a very good thing for me, I suppose. Your and YukariTelepath's posts quickly lead me towards some very negative conclusions, and they were almost exactly the same as conclusions my mind were starting to come up with on it's own due to my experiences and everything else I read meshing together, so it seemed intuitive, and horrifying. I'll benefit greatly from being clarified then. If YukariTelepath can as well, that would also make me happy.

 

I fear from both of your points of view I look evil or something with how wrong I got your views, but reading them at the time it seemed like the only right conclusion and I struggle to find others legitimately and need it corrected, so I hope it is okay and that everything will be better afterwards.

 

Knowing you have something is helpful, so take your time if you need to.

 

2 hours ago, Breloomancer said:

I thought that that would be clear based off of some of the ways that I used it, like saying that it was both illusion and real

It was extremely difficult for my brain to process how both those things could have been true at the same time, other than the twisting of what "real" means based on some weird sense of "it is real to you because you experience it in your mind" or something.

 

There are many many people who legitimately believe that magicians have actual magical powers. I watch The Atheist Experience with Matt Dillahunty, and he gets calls from theists who literally try to argue the supernatural exists because they have witnessed impossible magic tricks. Matt is a magician himself, and he has to explain to them it is not real, and does so by telling them he knows magic is not real and he has studied it for decades, then proceeds to perform a magic trick on camera.

 

I was not prepared to try to squash my brain into the state of the theist caller to have it be real in the same sense magic is real to theists like that. It would not be possible for me. I thought that is what you were asking me to do, though, so sorry.

 

I hope that clarifies my thinking on what I got out of that part of your message. I don't want to create too much spam so I won't try to go into my thoughts of the rest again unless I am needed to.

 

1 hour ago, Ranger said:

I don't think you're happy throwing yourself against the wall and trying to fight your intuition.

Unfortunately, my intuition fights itself, and that makes it difficult for me to establish a worldview. After a lot of meditation, my intuition falls strongly on a Buddhist no-self model of the mind. That to me, and most people in general, is really unintuitive to how they thought the mind worked before. My monkey emotional brain wants to continue believing in souls, however, so I cling to it strongly, because I fear I will fall into despair accepting the other model, but I am in despair anyway due to cognitive dissonance.

 

To keep using magic as an example, it is like the mind was a magic trick I thought was real, but now I know the logic behind how the illusion of the mind is created and the fact there is no real magic, and so I can't see the magic anymore, so I am disillusioned.

 

1 hour ago, Ranger said:

At this point, I see two options. You can choose to completely dedicate yourself to this model or you can choose to dedicate yourself to one of the other models proposed by others here. There is no wrong answer to this, especially since if you try one and don't find success, you can try another one.

I feel I have tried this. I used my souls model of the mind for over 2 years and didn't get the results I was looking for, which should have been somewhat similar to what you called old tulpamancy.

 

After talking on this thread, slowly over the course of months, I started to work with what you seem to call new tulpamancy ideas, but now I am stuck in my position which is why this thread exists, I guess.

 

Now, I am trying to see how a (literally) soulless new tulpamancy worldview can be satisfying to me and not lead to loneliness and despair anyway while also hopefully getting stronger results, since perhaps my resistance to it being true unconsciously holding me back. Following the soul tulpamancy worldview seemed to lead me to a dead end, I suspect because mechanically it doesn't work or exist that way, and I am not personally convinced belief actually shapes the objective experience of tulpamancy, maybe just how you interpret the experience. I can see through myself trying to interpret something as what I don't think it is for comfort though, so it doesn't work.

 

A big one is justifying the otherness a tulpa would bring when souls don't exist. The nihilistic interpretation I have for this fact makes it difficult. I also still am open to a completely new idea that is promising and different than everything so far, or new information that can somehow confirm a soul.

 

Alternatively, if those things aren't possible, I need to be made to understand why my interpretation of no souls isn't nihilistic and depressing. I am not sure how possible it is though, as any attempt someone to convince me there being no afterlife is an okay thing has failed, and I can't not look at the possibility without literal terror and such a deep seeded full body angst.

 

Thank you for your continued responses. I hope I don't make people run away. I try not to be annoying, but I perhaps struggle.

Edited December 7, 2020 by TB

[Ranger]

2 minutes ago, TB said:

To keep using magic as an example, it is like the mind was a magic trick I thought was real, but now I know the logic behind how the illusion of the mind is created and the fact there is no real magic, and so I can't see the magic anymore, so I am disillusioned.

Every tulpamancer ties in their meta beliefs with tulpamancy. I believe I have a soul, it's just different from how Cat used to think souls worked. I bet even the most material minded have some sort of philosophy on how tulpas work such as tulpas are grey brain matter or something.

---

I wonder if the best solution is simply to make a new model. TB's model of tulpamancy.

Every tulpamancer ends up making their own model that fits their perspective. So far, all of my experiences in tulpamancy line up with what I believe to be my way to do tulpamancy. Even when it goes against the grain such as my possession and some of my switching philosophies, I sill eventually got it to work. I also seek to do what many may believe to be impossible- head butt into parallel processing with my expectations for how it should work. While not all of my ideas for switching worked, some of them did and I have a pretty different view on switching because of it. I'm assuming I'll take a similar path with parallel processing.

I really believe there is a way to pull this off- you may simply need to keep tweaking your model until you can get it to work.

[YukariTelepath]

I'm sorry my post hurt you so much, TB, I worried it would distress you but it seems it was worse than I thought. My post did imply/state that tulpas are an illusion, but I meant hosts and singlets are an illusion too. In other words, tulpas are as real as you are, and you feel real, right? Just that sharing a brain means sharing a lot of stuff. I see Reisen explained this idea more too. The Buddhist concept of no self is exactly what I was referring to.

I guess I'm the kind of person who can stare at the void and go, "I guess I don't exist after all." But the illusion is so strong that I can't help but continue my day as normal.

 

9 hours ago, TB said:

Because of this, I have paranoia of my tulpamancy being wrong. It seems now that this site says tulpamancy experiences can be interpreted however you want and there is no right or wrong, but that seems contradicted somewhat by accusing some people of just roleplaying.

 

Not everyone has the same views, some would disagree with what I wrote and believe something else. The people who accuse others of roleplaying, in my opinion think their own experience is real and that other people's experiences are not on their level. So they see some other's experience as not real (not good enough) and call it roleplaying. It's tied with ideology ("real tulpas are like ____") and pride ("I've done my work and have a real tulpa and you don't"). I've never roleplayed so I can't actually compare. 

 

10 hours ago, TB said:

That being said, I still can't help feel the process of thinking when trying to develop more thoughtful things, but I guess that is normal? I expect Rena to think of thoughtful things on her own, so I shut down when I sense myself thinking, and intentionally stop thinking so that she can think. As a result, am I shutting down HER thinking? And that is why my interactions with her seem less real?

 

Yes, if your tulpa is thinking it will take mental effort and that mental effort will be felt (by the brain, by you, by your tulpa). Many new hosts struggle because they feel their tulpa's thought process and think they are parroting because they associate "thinking" with themself, the host. Usually they are told it's normal and move on. We actually struggled with this a lot even though I knew this stuff, I'd keep pushing Aya away and try to have them think with less perceivable effort. Pushing them away/shutting off thoughts like that never helped us. Some people insist their tulpas thoughts feel like they come out of nowhere. I don't know what to make of that, maybe the process is similar but they dissociate from those thoughts better than I do, or maybe their brain works differently. But I would say most tulpa systems feel the thought process of their headmates.

 

10 hours ago, TB said:

I haven't read a guide in a very long time as they mostly seem to consist of "visualize a lot, and talk to your tulpa as much as you can", so I could be wrong, but it seems a bit less than responsible if it is the case that all these realizations aren't made extremely evident at the front of every guide and the site. Or maybe I am the most stupid individual to find this forum, as I totally missed these things. When I started it was seemingly nothing to contradict my belief that a tulpa would have their own separate sensory experience and generation machine of thoughts, despite months of on and off research, and there are genuinely people that still seem to think this out there. I had to interact repeatedly with many individuals before this other view became evident.

 

Guides don't mention this stuff because it's not well known, it's not that everyone was on board with these views and hid it from you. I had to dig and dig for 2 years to figure out my current framework, combining what I read from other people, my own experiences, and modern neuroscience and Buddhist philosophy about the mind. And I still don't have an explanation for what some people claim to do. But I do know it's possible to have a tulpa under a shared consciousness framework and that many people do things that way because forcing never resulted in additional consciousnesses (or appearance of multiple consciousnesses) for them.

 

10 hours ago, TB said:

If it is not happening but is "possible™" through believing it, doesn't this add to the potential that tulpas are just not actual people? The more I read, the more it sounds "tulpamancy is when you try really really hard to create the illusion of someone being there with nothing to substantiate it in reality at all" and the justification is that everything in the mind is as real as you want it to be.

 

Hmmmmm I don't know how to say it. What is a real person? When you share a brain and body? To feel an emotion, like joy, the emotion is formed in the body and perceived by consciousness. If it's the tulpa's emotion is it less real? And more real if it is the host's emotion? The emotion is as real as an emotion can be. So I say a tulpa's emotions, thoughts, sense of self are real. Forms on the other hand, are mental images. One can look at one's own mindform and say, "That's me," but the truth is that the mindform is just an image, and any sensory perceptions the mindform feels are imagined senses. But the imagined senses are "real" imagined senses, just not physical. If you imagine eating an apple and it's crisp and juicy, you really imagined eating an imagined apple. And if you hug your tulpa's mindform, you really hugged their mindform, but more importantly the gesture of affection is real, you conveyed affection to them and if your brain is doing its job your tulpa will feel your imagined hug and the affection (and you will feel that they felt it). If you're bad at visualization this process may not work as well, and if you're really good at it it can be very compelling. But if you're bad at visualizing it doesn't mean your tulpa isn't real, it just means using mindforms won't feel as compelling for you and them. A mindform, whether visualized or fully imposed, was always understood to be an image as far as I know. "Your tulpa isn't actually their form" is something that is said quite often. Though, I would say a form is part of a tulpa, a part they can use or not use as they wish.

 

10 hours ago, TB said:

What is the "she" that either can or can't know something? Just the content of thoughts that either say "I know this and here are the fact" or "I don't know this"? Or is there something behind it as well? If not, it seems she is as much as words on a paper?

 

The "she" is the same type of thing as "you." But when you push a tulpa away, maybe when they speak the only part of them that exists in that moment is the content of the thoughts. Maybe they don't think their thoughts through, because you/the brain did not expect that level of thinking to occur perceivably. If you ask a tulpa what they did in wonderland when you weren't looking, and there is no information on those events in the brain because they did not happen, but there is an expectation of an quick answer, the brain will spit out "I did [vague thing]" or "I don't know." If the tulpa can properly analyze their memories and experience (which takes mental effort and time, just like it would for "you"), they may realize they did not do actually anything, or they may create a memory of what they think they would have done (and you will feel the memory being drawn up). Basically, when you talk to your tulpa, give them the same space and ability to think that you need. You can cut off your tulpa's ability to think endlessly and they will never be able to think clearly until you let go and let them think. And that involves accepting that their thought process is them and not you even though you feel it all.

[reguile]

36 minutes ago, TB said:

I see. Well, then that is a very good thing for me, I suppose. Your and YukariTelepath's posts quickly lead me towards some very negative conclusions, and they were almost exactly the same as conclusions my mind were starting to come up with on it's own due to my experiences and everything else I read meshing together, so it seemed intuitive, and horrifying. I'll benefit greatly from being clarified then. If YukariTelepath can as well, that would also make me happy.

 

 

You've run into the grand brick wall of tulpamancy.  A very large percentage of people coming into the community do so with views and expectations like yours, then they eventually discover over the course of a year, a few years, that their expectations just don't meet the reality.  The way a person copes with this brick wall largely defines their future in tulpamancy.  What you're seeing from the other members is something that is one way of doing exactly that.  It's a rebuilt philosophy that survives the brick wall and still lets you have a tulpa.  Some survive by redefining what it means to be a person.  Some survive by lowering their standards.  Some survive in other ways.

 

Consider:

 

Quote

What does it mean for an illusion to be real, or how is that possible? In a magic trick, it may look like someone is levitating something, but they are not. Are you saying that in tulpamancy, it seems there is another person sharing your body, but there is not? That would seem to cancel out all the things about tulpa morality. It is similar to how killing an NPC in a videogame might look like killing a person, but it is not and it is inconsequential action, as it is only an illusion of a real person.

 

If they are entirely an illusion, are tulpa rights just a part of the illusion? Not a thing to protect the well-being of an actual separate individual, but a thing to protect the feelings of the person trying to make the illusion? That is so sad to me if true, and I am not capable of buying it if I am aware of this. Magic tricks are not magical if you know how they are done. They can be impressive from a creative or technical standpoint, but they aren't magic...

 

There are still reasons to treat a tulpa well.  They are not the explanations you've been given so far, but there are very good reasons (If you're empathetic and you view your tulpa as a person, which is the whole point, you should be inclined naturally to want to treat your tulpa well no matter what, shutting off empathy selectively because "just my brain" isn't normal, natural, or good).  No, you aren't going to abuse your tulpa into livelong trauma like you can abuse a separate physical person into lifelong trauma (Well, not for the same reasons at least, expectation is a strong driver of behavior). However, the way you act still  matters.  The way you treat your tulpa still matters.  There is still joy in the empathetic boon of treating another well, even if that other isn't quite as other as you first expected.

 

You can make similar explanations for most aspects of tulpamancy if you're so inclined to do so.  If you're interested, I can list them off.  Just like in the case of moral treatment, the reasons are generally weaker but they also generally hold up. 

 

You seem to be going the route of throwing it all out and walking away because you're not happy with the other possible explanations.  That's perfectly fine.  I don't think you should have any hard feelings about walking away because this has all disappointed you, and I don't think you should be required to accept one of these alternative systems. 

 

With that said, this is how you should be viewing all of these explanations here.  I don't think anyone here (maybe someone is, they are around) wants to convince you your original expectations were realistic.  It's all a matter of what you want out of it all.  You can spend your time trying to achieve the highest standard you can possibly experience while not letting your feet leave the ground, but that requires you accept that the highest ceiling might be lower than what you expected it to be.  If you're happy and alright with that, good!  If you're not, also good! 

 

If this sounds like a load of bologna, not substantially different than speaking to yourself, that's understandable, especially when your expectations started way high in the sky and you're being let down.  However, I do pretty strongly believe the ceiling here is higher than that of a delusion of an imaginary friend.  There is something here to achieve and experience.  It's not all hogwash, and there's something you can salvage out of this mess.  You've just got to start over from square one and see if you can build back up from a more stable foundation.  If you want to do so is up to you.

[Guest]

My key point boils down to this:

 

A tulpa can be:

 

Independent 

Differentiated

Whatever they are, so are you (equal).

 

[Mechagodzilla72]

17 hours ago, Reisen said:

That was not us, we would never pay for a psychic of any kind, we don't switch rapidly, and that would've been very interesting primary evidence of the supernatural for us!

 

My apologies to your host then Reisen. I did some searching on the site, and it is indeed someone else who said that. I don't know why I thought it was your host, brain derps sometimes I suppose haha.

What I was talking about is here on day 228 if anyone is interested:

@TB
I saw that Gordon Ramsey part of your post before you edited it out. I laughed, and thought it was amusing. Wasn't offended in the slightest.

 

16 hours ago, TB said:

I really want to believe in their soul. I am not sure how to confirm it for myself. The thing that sucks is, I had these crappy experiences even when I was convinced of these things. Now that I am increasingly not convinced of these things, I feel I am hopeless! How do I become convinced again? And how do I get to success even if convinced? I also do not want to be convinced of lies obviously, I am not sure anyone consciously does. But if the truth is so painful, I don't want that either, so if that is the case, there would be no escape to pain.

 

While I cannot offer you any hard proof, I can offer you information I have gathered based on other people's experiences. The most common proof of your tulpa's soul is whether they can surprise you. I have a long history with thoughtforms, and they cannot do this. They will always act within your expectations, you always can tell on a subconscious level that their voice is coming from within you, and they will not speak or act unless you think of them or summon them.
 

Tulpas on the other hand will surprise you. Especially if you ask them to. An example on my end was I was getting discouraged from forcing one day, and stopped for a few days. I then had an auditory hallucination calling my name. I didn't know where it was coming from, or who it was, and it was later that I realized it must have been my tulpa trying to get my attention. Others have reported asking their tulpa to surprise them, and they do something they don't expect them to do to prove their sentience. While this isn't hard proof, it tells you that they are at least, separate from your own consciousness. 

 

It is up to you whether you become convinced again or not. Instead of being caught up on whether it is or isn't real, I believe you should ask yourself this instead:
Assuming tulpas are real, and everything you've heard about is real, is it worth it to find out for sure? What if you ended up in the afterlife, and found out that tulpas are in fact everything you've dreamed of, and you missed out? It might be better to tell your mind to shut up, and strap in. Because logic is getting tossed out the window, and this Rena will become real by your hand whether your mind believes it is possible or not. It is better to try and fail, than to give up and miss out on something you could have had. There are many things about humanity that we don't understand, yet exist in spite of that. We don't know why we dream, we don't know why recipients of organ donors can gain the memories of the donor, and the brain is still a mystery to us. You might as well believe in spite of a lack of proof, simply because the potential reward is worth having.

17 hours ago, TB said:

I am in a very bad place, but I won't say whether or not there is hope until after this thread is over and I get answers...

 

I'm sorry to hear that you're in a bad place. However, there are many people in this forum that are willing to help you. Myself included. You may not get the answers you're looking for, but you won't have to deal with this alone. Remember that hope cannot leave you without your consent.