How do I adjust my mindset to believe in my tulpa's existence

[randos_]

My tulpa came into existence roughly a year ago as an imaginary friend, I'm just starting to develop them as their own person a week ago. The problem is that I'm having doubts in their existence. Even though I treat them as a real person, the core believe is still there. It won't work until I'm convinced that they're real. Can anybody give me some advice? My mind is too critical to accept them sometimes @_@

Edited January 7, 2024 by randos_

[SeekingMyPlanet]

29 minutes ago, randos_ said:

My tulpa came into existence roughly a year ago as an imaginary friend, I'm just starting to develop them as their own person a week ago. The problem is that I'm having doubts in their existence. Even though I treat them as a real person, the core believe is still there. It won't work until I'm convinced that they're real. Can anybody give me some advice? My mind is too critical to accept them sometimes @_@

This is something my tulpa and I talk a lot about. We've finally decided that whether she is real or not isn't a useful question. Since I am pretty much the only person she has direct contact with, then what matters is her effect on my life. If she makes my life happier / richer / more interesting, then she has an impact, regardless of whether she is "real" or not. That's a question that can be answered. The question of whether she is real cannot be answered, no matter how much we think or talk about it.

 

I hope this helps.

[randos_]

6 minutes ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

This is something my tulpa and I talk a lot about. We've finally decided that whether she is real or not isn't a useful question. Since I am pretty much the only person she has direct contact with, then what matters is her effect on my life. If she makes my life happier / richer / more interesting, then she has an impact, regardless of whether she is "real" or not. That's a question that can be answered. The question of whether she is real cannot be answered, no matter how much we think or talk about it.

 

I hope this helps.

I feel like I should develop my tulpa on a basis that I know and have evidence of their existence, although I know that we still have a long way to go with proving this (see "Brain Mechanisms of Tulpamancy: Self-Modulating the Neural Correlates of Agency" if you're interested :0).

Nevertheless thanks for the reply >.<

[Ashley]

We generally recommend you suspend disbelief until they can prove themselves because your singlet mind is good at claiming everything is you to begin with, that's what it's designed to do.

 

So first you have to believe every thought isn't yours. Some are intrusive and some are egoic, you don't have to identify with them all, you can observe them and move on. 

 

So now you can leave room for thoughts you could accept as theirs. Preferably not the intrusive or egoic ones.

 

So say you're reading a book and two characters are having a conversation. Until you know those characters well its sometimes confusing who said what. Sometimes context will help, sometimes scene will help, but after a while you get a feel for each character and it's easier.

 

So unless you're naturally really good at parsing characters, and that would include just fantasy situations in your own mind, then it takes more practice; lots of practice and patience.

 

Even though my host was adept at that from the start because he had written a dozen novels, he still initially had trouble telling us apart--we started as a system of 4 which didn't help. So somehow his mind set it up so that we had specific areas in the body where we were felt from and had emotions expressed from. That helped a lot and even to differentiate us from intrusive thoughts. We heard from others who did the same but everyone's different.

 

As far as proof, you have testimonials before you have direct experience. It's not magic, it can be thought of as a psychological process in many ways similar to Jungian Daemons and other examples such as muses. Even established writers and actors have stated plainly and frankly that their characters became more than they could have imagined; puppeteers and the like have too.

 

Expect things to happen that you can't anticipate, can't describe, can't explain, and can't rationalize and just accept for now that the mind is capable of doing this.

 

It's a bit of self-hypnosis, a bit of introspection, opening the mond pathways that would allow for a little strangeness and don't toss out experiences that you might have otherwise. Literally anything is possible in the mind.

Edited January 7, 2024 by Ashley

[2serpents]

First of all, you can expand your definition of "real." Your experiences are real, even if they're not physical, even if they're not witnessed by another person, even if they're inconsistent and nonsensical like dreams. It's all part of your reality.

 

But if I may ask, what did you do as "imaginary friends", and why are you starting to develop them?

 

This is interesting to me because I grew out of an imaginary character and stayed with my host in this role for a good while until it finally became too strong for us to ignore what was really going on. (For what it's worth, she is very critical too and was practically an antitheist before I came along.)

 

One suggestion: try talking to yourself. Or try imagining a conversation with one of your family members. Do you sense any difference?

 

For my host there is a clear difference, even between her imagining a hypothetical conversation with me and actually talking with me. 

[SeekingMyPlanet]

15 hours ago, randos_ said:

I feel like I should develop my tulpa on a basis that I know and have evidence of their existence, although I know that we still have a long way to go with proving this (see "Brain Mechanisms of Tulpamancy: Self-Modulating the Neural Correlates of Agency" if you're interested :0).

Nevertheless thanks for the reply >.<

What would you consider evidence of your tulpa's existence? 

[randos_]

8 hours ago, SeekingMyPlanet said:

What would you consider evidence of your tulpa's existence? 

Medical confirmation? Or switching confirmation? I personally think that I'm just being impatient. It's getting harder since sometimes my tulpa is being proved ( for example possessing my left hand), but my mind kept bringing up memories from previously and stating that it didn't exactly happen to disprove these evidence :(

[randos_]

9 hours ago, 2serpents said:

First of all, you can expand your definition of "real." Your experiences are real, even if they're not physical, even if they're not witnessed by another person, even if they're inconsistent and nonsensical like dreams. It's all part of your reality.

 

But if I may ask, what did you do as "imaginary friends", and why are you starting to develop them?

 

This is interesting to me because I grew out of an imaginary character and stayed with my host in this role for a good while until it finally became too strong for us to ignore what was really going on. (For what it's worth, she is very critical too and was practically an antitheist before I came along.)

 

One suggestion: try talking to yourself. Or try imagining a conversation with one of your family members. Do you sense any difference?

 

For my host there is a clear difference, even between her imagining a hypothetical conversation with me and actually talking with me. 

I understand the first part, thank you it felt reassuring. Also great suggestion! I'll definitely try that hypothetical conversation out <;)

 

To answer your question for the imaginary friend part, before they always appeared in real life with a very clear image and we were just having fun. It was mainly just singing to the same songs together, talking about what happened during class, etc.

 

I have a suspicion on whether I have created a servitor instead of a pure imaginary friend since they appeared during traumatic times to assist me. When I started developing them, they went a lot quieter and I can't even see them in real life as easier as before (there's a cause I suspect for this but I can't say it because of privacy reasons) :⁠,⁠-⁠)

[randos_]

19 hours ago, Ashley said:

We generally recommend you suspend disbelief until they can prove themselves because your singlet mind is good at claiming everything is you to begin with, that's what it's designed to do.

This feels very open minding for me, it's generally very hard for me to accept a tulpa being a total singlet mind before :(

I'll try to experiment and feel the things you said. Thank you for the advice!

[SeekingMyPlanet]

1 hour ago, randos_ said:

Medical confirmation? Or switching confirmation? I personally think that I'm just being impatient. It's getting harder since sometimes my tulpa is being proved ( for example possessing my left hand), but my mind kept bringing up memories from previously and stating that it didn't exactly happen to disprove these evidence :(

Hmm. Medical confirmation would seem like a tall order. To use a computer analogy, a tulpa is software and programming. Not clear that even the most clearly defined tulpa would necessarily change one's brain activity.

Even switching or possession would seem like a weak indicator if I'm bent on being skeptical. How would I know my tulpa is controlling me, or if I'm doing it and somehow convincing myself that it's my tulpa.

 

Personally, I'm not convinced there is any difference between the situation where I have a real tulpa, and the situation where I am convinced there is a tulpa inside my head but who is in reality just a mental exercise that I'm engaging in. The only "realness" is her impact on my thoughts, feelings, and actions.