What do tTulpas do when they're not present

[.Daniel.]

Hello, my name is Daniel and i'm new to the forum. I don't have a tulpa, nor do I intend to make one, but the topic is incredibly interesting to me.

One thing I do not understand about Tulpas is, what do they do when they're not present? By that I mean, if you go a couple hours without thinking about your tulpa, when you start talking to them again, has the tulpa been doing anything? Or is the tulpa "on pause" until you think of them?

Are tulpas like a computer program? Something that can run in the background while you focus on something else, or do you have to focus on the tulpa for them to exist?

If you don't interact with a tulpa for a couple hours, when you interact with them, do they say that they've been doing something while you were away?

 

In case this question doesn't make sense, I'll rephrase it like this:

Let's say you talk to your Tulpa for a bit when you wake up. Then, you decide to cook something. In the hour that it takes you to cook, you don't interact with your Tulpa. When you're done cooking, you again talk to your tulpa. In the hour that you were cooking, was your Tulpa doing something else? Or did they "pause", only to resume when you thought of them again?

 

Further, if you have multiple Tulpas, if you interact with only 1 tulpa at a time, what would the other tulpa be doing? Can two tulpas interact with each other without the tulpamancer being aware of it.

 

Thanks for your time,

Daniel

[Yakumo]

Hello Daniel!

 

That's one of the most common questions but surprisingly complex and still the cause of a lots of debate. Personal experience may greatly differ from person to person and so far a scientific model is still lacking

Generally one of the most fundamental insights tulpamancy can offer is that the common concept of what's 'you' is grossly oversimplified. What we perceive as 'us' is only a tiny fraction of conscious thought processes in a sea of the unconscious mind, and even the conscious part is not monolithic but a conglomerate of quite different and often conflicting mental processes originating in different brain regions which are then integrated in a more or less coherent picture we perceive as 'self'.

 

Tulpamancy exploits those inherent properties of our brain to form a second or multiple 'selves' which may come in different stages of development.

That said it is very difficult to define what being 'active' or ‘conscious' actually means. Rather think of it as a number of layers through which the brain switches depending on the requirements of the situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_correlates_of_consciousness#Forward_versus_feedback_projections
 

Quote

In brief, while rapid but transient neural activity in the thalamo-cortical system can mediate complex behavior without conscious sensation, it is surmised that consciousness requires sustained but well-organized neural activity dependent on long-range cortico-cortical feedback.

 

In your example, are 'you' really doing the cooking? If you are familiar with the recipe it becomes a largely unconscious process over time which requires little mental effort. You can then interact with your tulpa while cooking. Or have your tulpa give the body rough instructions on how to do the cooking.

 

Another good example is driving a car. First it's such an overwhelmingly complex task to coordinate hands and feet that it's very hard to pay attention to the surrounding traffic but with enough routine all that gets unloaded to unconscious routines so you can effortlessly talk to others or think about complex problems while driving safely. This goes so far that 'you' may briefly end up zoning out while driving, with little to no conscious memory of what was going on. We spend much more time in such 'zombie mode' than we realize.

 

In a way 'you' stopped being active or were on pause while your body still flawlessly carried out a complex routine, observed the environment and took appropriate action. That can be a quite creepy realization. Your body doesn't necessarily need 'you' for routine tasks. It can do them on autopilot. But that doesn't mean 'you' stopped existing. You were just not in the front, controlling what the body was doing. This is essentially what happens in tulpamancy. Taking a step back and giving room to a second conscious entity instead of the unconscious 'operating system' that runs the basic routine tasks.

 

Consistent with the theory of layers of consciousness, there's a continuum from being highly aware and active to completely unconscious and this goes both for you and your tulpa. Just like you while driving, tulpas may be less active in the background or completely 'out' for a while. Of course in the beginning they'll be 'on pause' a lot without your constant effort but with enough development they do not need you to think of them anymore and they will make themselves heard or take action on their own. That's where the fun begins.

 

A tulpa basically starts out as any other fictional character you've just made up and needs attention or it will be forgotten. By interacting with this concept and deeply anchoring it in the unconscious mind it may become as powerful as your own perception of self which itself is little more than a feedback loop which grew during your life. Ultimately a developed tulpa is not different from 'you' in any way. It is just another part of the whole mind.

 

Regarding interacting with multiple tulpas there's of course an ultimate limit to the brain's processing power but people tend to be quite different in this regard. The field of such parallel processing is still highly controversial. I've yet to see someone having 3 tulpas solve difficult math problems at the same time but it is possible for several for them to be active. But not secretly in the background while you are doing complex work, rather you'll go (semi)dormant while they take over. Your level of awareness in this case may vary just like in the car example. As you ultimately share the same mind, hiding things from whowver was inactive usually does not work but is not impossible as seen in pathologic manifestations like dissociative identity disorder where different entities may be completely unaware of what has been going on while they were inactive. But this is not something that can be trained by tiulpamancy without a background of mental illness.

 

So yeah, this may all sound very esoteric for those who have not experienced it but keep in mind in most cases it's not some hard 'switch' as in DID but rather a gradual shift in who's hogging the most attention. You could call it a matter of perspective that's not trivial because as said, even what you perceive is 'you' is the result of many different neuronal processes interacting with each other.

 

If you want to know more without creating a tulpa I recommend you consciously observe yourself doing routine tasks. Take a step back in your mind, try not to interfere and watch what your body is doing. Walking, brushing your teeth, typing your thoughts on a computer, even holding small talk. Then try to do something else in your mind while still being aware of the routine your body is executing. If you can manage this switch of perspective you’ve already discovered one of the main aspects of tulpamancy.

[The Candlelight Society]

I second everything Yakumo said as it's a very thorough and well thought out explanation of the processes connected to the question. I'll lay out some more basic layman's talk though for those who might desire it. It may still seem a bit complex at first glance but I hope I can explain it clear enough.

 

At the moment what tulpas do when not present is one with much debate but the common consensus nowadays is that they enter a state we call inactivity or if it's more long term dormancy. During this the tulpa simply isn't around to full capacity and is basically unconscious or in a form of stasis. This isn't a simple explanation though because tulpamancy is highly suggestive and things can happen that may seem contradictory to this. For instance in my system when two members came out of dormancy they had changed behaviors and talked of certain things I wasn't present for, which would seem to be against this. I have my personal opinions in this that are more grounded than a 100% this or that, but generally even with this I consider inactivity to be the default answer for most tulpas.

 

Some others believe that tulpas can run on their own indefinitely with their own povs and thoughts in an imagined space or "wonderland" without any attention from the current fronter. This is a form of parallel processing, a supposed skill that has earned a sort of holy grail or philosopher's stone status among the tulpa community. I call it this not only for it's potential ability but also because it's very much earned a sort of mythic status where most don't believe in it at all and discussion of it is always a matter of debate.

 

So tldr: they simply aren't active or aware until some energy is sent their way just like when you are zoned out, but it can be messy and there is alternative viewpoints.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Michael Blackwater
Wording

[.Daniel.]

Thank y'all so much for the response. Yall's answer is about what I would have assumed the response would be, which is what makes Tulpas so fascinating to me. The idea that we can create a second, or even more, consciousness that can run, at some capacity, parallel to our own is amazing! Your response, Yakumo, is so interesting, because I would think that Tulpa consciousness is something that your have to focus on. I'm not that interested in psychology or any related fields, but to think of the brain as being able to be layered, with several consciousness being able to react to something differently, it's just fascinating.

 

(sorry for asking a common question, I wasn't able to find any answers because it's hard to find the right words to search with)