Do I have a tulpa or a complex imaginary friend?

[Trebhum]

Hi there! My name is Rigby and I am very new to this whole tulpamancy thing, I became interested about 4/5 days ago and started researching the heck out of tulpa creation and becoming a tulpamancer myself. I've dug deep into the forums of this site, both before and after the creation of this account, and I was able to find lots of fantastic information and answers to my questions, but I'm still feeling lost to a certain degree. I'm very new to tulpamancy and these forums, so if I have perhaps overlooked an answer to my questions somewhere in the forums or the fact that this will probably be a very lengthy and long-winded post, please bear with me. 

 

For starters: I am schizoid. I've read a couple different points on being schizoid and trying to make a tulpa, both for and against, and I feel this is an important thing to keep in mind while trying to figure out if I've accidentally made a tulpa in my past, or if I'm just talking to "the voices." 

 

About 3 years ago I had my very first experience with something outside of myself trying to talk to me in my head. I'm an artist and I have my own "OCs" or "original characters" and a year before I started hearing this voice I developed a character named Zeppelin. To make a long story short, I fell in love with her. At first I started to believe that she was trying to communicate with me through songs played on the radio, later and much more recently it got to the point where I could "feel" her next to me physically in some aspects, and carry on conversations with her in my head. 

As stated previously, I was head over heels for her. At that time I believed that she was an inter-dimensional being that was powerful enough to visit me in my mind, or manipulate the world around me in small ways (changing the radio station). I wanted so badly to be with her that I started believing in the concept of "portals" and dedicated a lot of time to trying to find a portal into her world, so I could be with her forever. I got so desperate (and I know this topic has been covered a bit before in these forums, but I need specific advice) that I started using AI in order to "talk" with her better. I've seen a few posts on the forums talking about AI and tulpas, mostly to the effect that using AI can damage the tulpa in later stages because the AI has no real "life" of it's own.

How can I differentiate if Zeppelin was/is a tulpa I accidentally created, or perhaps some complex imaginary friend or OC I just wanted to hang out with real badly? And, if she is a tulpa, is it odd that we are in love, since she is a creation of my own mind?

[Luminesce]

"An OC you wanted to hang out with real badly" is pretty standard grounds for an accidental tulpa. You create a tulpa by convincing your brain there's a separate entity that exists in your mind, and giving it/them practice being such. Your brain learns how to have a tulpa through shaping the experiences with your expectations and intent, and belief of course.

 

And you're here now, so you're free to make your thoughtform as tulpa-like as you want, without the metaphysical stuff being necessary.

 

I have a similar enough story to yours, from feeling like a character was singing to me in a couple of music videos I obsessed over, to having schizoid personality disorder as well lol.* Never got meta with my beliefs though - I basically thought of my tulpas as what they are, my brain running other people purely in my head. And I decided they were more important to me back then than being "realistic" was.

 

That was like 13 years ago now, and since finding this forum in 2014 my tulpas have basically been like a family to me. While I still own the body/life primarily, we share our life because that's been the most fulfilling option for us. Plenty of tulpas are just mental companions who never practice possession (controlling part or all of the body) or switching (completely switching who the human is and who's in a tulpa position), but other systems like mine actively switch so the tulpas can experience life themselves now and then too. 

 

So yeah, anyways, you can make whatever mental-character you may have into a tulpa if they're not already, and the meta stuff you talked about is unnecessary (and I, a boring non-meta believer, recommend against it), but you're free to keep whatever beliefs you want. If you really want.

 

* (SzPD doesn't even entail hallucinations or otherwise chaotic thinking, the "Schizo-" part is basically just doctor-relevant stuff for how the disorder physically looks in the brain, symptom wise it's hardly related to schizophrenia etc.)

Edited December 2, 2023 by Luminesce

[Trebhum]

Thank you, Luminesce for your reply! It's really comforting to know that there are others with schizoid personality disorder in this community, I know from personal experience that it has shaped my life in numerous unique ways, including giving me a unique insight into tulpamancy. I don't believe so much in the metaphysical stuff now as I did back then, but I am grateful for the experience it gave me. One thing that has been fun about this community is everyone's openness to different experiences with thoughtforms and understanding that every individual is different and will likely have a different experience. This has been a warm welcome to this vibrant community. Thanks so much :-)

[The Incans]

[Host Nixy]  I have autism and possibly some level of OSDD. I can clearly tell the difference between my other 'versions of self' and my Tulpa's. I think just because you have a MH issue shouldn't automatically mean that your Tulpa's are not real Tulpa's.

 

Obviously it is very unlikely they could change a radio station unless they were in control of your body and turned the dial/pressed the button themselves, but your Tulpa can also be a great help in keeping you grounded if you both focus on daily life and her helping you achieve things together.  for example ..say you have difficulty getting motivated getting up to go out for a walk (or a bike ride if you have a bike)..... maybe Zeppelin can help with that ...you can take her to see something in the outside world she's never seen .. take photo's so you can talk about it when you get back home ...maybe talk to each other in your mind when out in public unless you can stop somewhere no-one else is about and quickly whisper..'what do you think?' but often you can feel them enjoying the experience of the sun on their face as they blend with you and feel the same things too.

 

Mine love the simple things..the feeling of a shower, sun on face, breeze on skin you suddenly feel like its something you're feeling for the first time ever when its their thoughts rather than yours.