Daniel's Tulpa Progress Log

[CyberD]

Take your tulpa to work day

I always take Noah to work with me but today I decided I'd more of an effort with it. I set him up in suitable clothes and when we got there I made sure he was participating in the work I did.

Forcing when out and about can be incredibly valuable especially when you are doing something otherwise mundane. Working with Noah around is more enjoyable. He gives me someone to talk to and it's always amusing to see him try to be "useful".... at least as far as a tulpa can be.

More than ever I find him endearing, that being the single trait I specifically wanted him to have. Watching him run to keep up with me or simply enjoying his company when anyone else would normally be alone is wonderful. Work can be very boring at times and Noah would agree but with him along for the ride it isn't always so bad.

Plus we get to think of things that I can talk about here.

 

Tulpa form regarding cosmetic deviations

A lot of tulpa go through many visual changes when they are first created. Any and all characteristics can change in an instant and because of that it can be difficult to settle on one particular form.

I'm glad Noah's form turned out to be very "normal". I could also use words such as simple or bland, regular or ordinary. He's just a boy and from day one I knew exactly what he looked like. He had brown hair and matching eyes, I know his height and weight, his somewhat slim build and just about every other characteristic that means anything.

Because he had a single fixed form it causes no trouble or confusion to play with deviations.

Clothes are the single greatest example. Beyond that would be his hair or the use of accessories such as sunglasses or something as simple as a wrist watch.

Sometimes these deviations will last a while. Maybe he'll play with the watch over several days before we leave it. Just like an actual person I know exactly who he is beneath it all. There are also more dramatic cosmetic changes that are permissible because we both know his form so well. With the power of imagination he can become ghostly, engulf his body in flames or turn into a completely synthetic android.

Others often play with animal forms or mythological forms but for the most part Noah likes to remain human.

With a strong form to base everything on your imagination is really the only limiter. Noah can do anything he wants without worry of losing who he is.

 

Noah is also a great example of why having a tulpa with an original and pretty standard form can be the easiest way to have a tulpa. You can have that dragon tulpa you always wanted... or that tulpa who looks like a cool character but who can also go back to who they normally are when the novelty of the idea wears off.

[CyberD]

When you're old

I don't plan on giving up on my tulpa. As far as I can see he'll be here for a very long time just as I plan to be. Making change in your life can be difficult and a lot of changes don't stick. So many people come here and say they will make a tulpa, some succeed, others just don't get it. But at the end of the day most of those people have gone. Just take a look at all the forgotten progress report threads here. The median number of replies is 7. Of the people who have 7 replies to their threads the average length of membership (time between date joined and last visit) is maybe three months. It's probably safe to assume that most of those people don't care much anymore for the tulpa they made.

 

Those numbers put Noah and myself in a minority. Compared to many tulpa Noah is old. By no means is he the oldest but his age certainly isn't shared by many. The scariest part is that he is only one..... I don't know where we'll be after a significant number of years but I do see him sticking around.

 

So what will it be like when he turns five... or when he turns ten. How about when his age matches the perceived age of his visualized body? I know that will make me feel old.

But here is the scarier thought. What will he say when he's standing next to one of my grandchildren?

The whole idea that is Noah was spawned in just a few hours on what could probably be called a whim. That whim now threatens to be with me for the rest of my life. He truly gets to play the eternal boy, he'll stay young forever, he'll keep his energy and hopefully his playful spark. When everyone around him, around me, gets old he'll still be stuck in the same body we decided on for him that day.

 

It's been a long time since I made the post I called Eternally Young but I still feel very much the same way about the issue. I'm just excited to see what happens when it happens. Noah could change a whole lot between now and whenever. Whether or not his form changes I know what will, his experiences. Every day is another day added to what he knows, to the things he's seen. I'm just glad we get to see it together.

 

So a little reflection for you. Look at your tulpa. Is that someone you want to still be around in a year? How about five? The tulpa process is longer than a lot of people realize. It didn't slip your mind did it?

[Yori]

Some people have just recently heard of tulpas, remember that...

and maybe those people are off with their tulpas? :D

I can't imagine a bunch of people up and abandoning sentient tulpas. It would make more sense if those reports were from before they were sentient.

[CyberD]

Daily life

What do you talk about when you've covered everything you can think of? I've sat down several times over the last couple of weeks to write something but I simply couldn't come up with a topic.

At this point Noah has become a part of my daily routine. We talk, he does stuff and none of it is really new or exciting enough to talk about here because I'm simply so used to him.

Having a tulpa for an extended time really forces you to get used to them. Being around a tulpa everyday is the same as being around a person, you run out of new things to talk about and you've heard it all before. Familiarity is a nice place to be but it is arguable a boring place too. There are plenty of ways I could spice it up but change isn't always necessary. I don't need another tulpa to keep Noah occupied, I don't need new things to do. For now I am simply happy that I can look over my shoulder or simply blink and there he is just being himself.

As of today, October 28th, I've been calling Noah a tulpa for a whole year. He's already about a year and a half old now and I'm glad he's still around. If there is one single thing that you can aim for as someone with a tulpa it is familiarity. Noah is as important to me as the people closest to me. He's a good friend who is always here and there isn't much else I could ask from him.

[CyberD]

Keeping focused long term

It's not always easy to bring your tulpa to the front of your mind every moment of every day. This last month or so I haven't interacted with Noah nearly as much as I would have liked to. Finally I realized the cause. It was because I wasn't interacting with the idea of tulpa very much. Reading about other people and their tulpa really helps me engage with Noah. He can relate to what they are doing and he can relate to who they are. When Noah is with me and when I am around other people he is the only tulpa. He is one of a kind and thus different from everything else.

But when we read about or talk to others with tulpa he isn't all alone. There are others who fill the same role he does. It gives him a place, he fits in and by feeling more comfortable he is more confident. We can talk about things that he can relate to, he has experiences that aren't just through me. The dynamic gives him something to share that isn't just something he's seen second hand through me during my day.

 

I think that really stresses the value of a wonderland. I don't use the idea very much personally but I can certainly see the value even in occasional visits. The tulpa can be at the center of attention while not the center of imagination. The mind has to focus on maintaining the surroundings at the same time giving the tulpa more autonomy. This fact is probably why so many beginners find such value in using a wonderland and struggle to interact with their tulpa outside one.

 

Heartbeat

How real is your tulpa to you? I've had Noah around for 18 months now and he is more real today than ever before. Sometimes he might just feel like that ghost that follows me around but other times he can be as real as imagination can be.

Contact is something people don't make very often. I can go a whole day without touching another a person. If I do it is often accidental or such a minor bump I don't even think about it. Contact between adults is rare and prolonged contact is considered very personal.

Then there are children. If given the chance children will jump all over you. They hug, grab, punch and snuggle depending on the mood. I can't sit next to an eight year old without being leaned on or used as a cushion.

 

I see Noah as a thirteen year old. He's closer to a child than he is to being an adult. He makes jabs at me when one of us makes a snarky remark and if I'm sitting down and watching a movie he isn't uncomfortable in getting close. He takes those attributes from my experiences with similar aged people in real life.

But there is one thing that makes him different from them. He is a part of me, which means the personal space barriers aren't a concern at all.

Something I noticed the other day that I had never really paid much attention to before was his heartbeat.

Sure, he's not real, he doesn't need a heartbeat because he doesn't have a heart. But, in my imagination he is just as much a human as the next person. At night he sleeps next to me. He doesn't need to sleep but he does because I can't stay awake all night to observe him as awake. Anyway, in a moment of loneliness... or perhaps just exhaustion from another day, I put my hand over his chest and there it was. His heartbeat just like any other person. I wasn't looking for it, it was just there. Already in place and beating as my subconscious created the information for me automatically. It took me by surprise but I wasn't startled. Of course he would have a heartbeat. It was dark but I knew he was grinning, that dumb grin he wears all the time when little things like this happen.

Right now that's my single biggest moment that makes this process real. Noah is real because of that moment. Noah is real because of all of the moments before and after it as well. The fact I gushed about it so easily helps as well. He's wearing at grin now because he knows I'm about to post it all. Good for him, I'm always glad he's around and I hope it stays that way.

[CyberD]

Searching for references

You know something is important to you when you see it in a dream. My dreams often involve references to my day or something that happened recently. Be it location, people or perhaps something about a movie or other media I watched. Unlike many dreams mine aren't usually all that strange. There aren't any supernatural goings on, just normal interaction with normal seeming people.... who may or may not happen to live around the world.

My dreams involving Noah are often similar in nature though more often than not they aren't about Noah but instead about Marcus. After all this time I'm still on the lookout for more reference images. At this point not so much to help me visualize Noah as he is but instead to see what he'll look like when he gets a bit older. In the dream, much like when I am awake I happened to notice a tv commercial from the company Marcus is cast by. He's never appeared in one before but there is always that chance. In the dream he was definitely in it, he is always in a group of children and he never gets the chance to speak but it was still interesting to see that even my sleeping mind could come up with his image so easily. Right now I can visualize Noah wearing the same thing and standing/sitting in the same position that Marcus was in the dream.

The conclusion? Merely a curiosity. I suppose you could argue having a tulpa helps with dream recall if you care about such things.

 

Tulpa and sexuality

A lot of people find it weird, others not so much. I'll be the first to say I don't care for sexual interaction with tulpa at all.

Noah is intentionally designed to be free from any sexual influences. His perceived age makes that believable and it has remained that way since I first created him.

If anything his attitude towards anything sexual could be considered like that of a machine. He understands it perfectly but he'll never mention it unless I specifically ask him. Should we witness or hear something sexually related, either by overhearing someone... or by seeing something on tv or in a movie then he'll be quick to dismiss it. There are plenty of other things to talk about.

I've know somewhere I've shared that before but I see no reason not to talk about it again. Some views change during the process... others don't.

[Guest Riy]

Cyber I just read over every post in your PR.

 

This is some stellar stuff you write about. You have a fantastic way of expressing your thoughts. I'm a bit envious, I'll admit.

I won't spam your PR with an essay length post. After reading the first few posts you've made I had to open my notepad and jot down a list of questions to discuss with Zala and myself. In fact I'm about to pop over there now to hammer that out.

 

This is beautifully written, objectively investigative, and incredibly detailed. Please keep flexing these talents. I look forward to your next post very much.

 

Cheers man!

[CyberD]

Thank you, keep at it and your own log will probably end up just as long if not longer. Though seventeen pages is pretty long.... and it's only getting longer.

So....an issue for today?

 

Keeping tulpa separate with a wonderland

Wonderlands can be helpful, they serve as a familiar place for the tulpa. In some cases the tulpa lives there and in a number of those cases the tulpa exists there exclusively.

 

And I don't like it.

 

It's like having an off button. Oh I'm done with my tulpa today so I'll just go back to reality and they are gone. For me the tulpa process is all the time, it doesn't matter where I am or what I am doing. Noah exists in my mind and my mind is always there. I can't turn him off, I can't step away and let him live in some imaginary world. For me the process is about him always being there just as my own mind is. Sure sometimes I'll forget about him, he won't be doing anything or I won't be visualizing him.... but at the same time my own mind goes into autopilot quite often. Just as often as he isn't there I'm not there either.... at least the part of my mind that does all the thinking beyond the moment.

 

I don't use a wonderland very often at all. Noah doesn't have his own home in some grassy field or a wooden house on the edge of a cliff. My home is his home and he occupies it in the same way I do... just not physically.

 

Wonderlands are as much an adventure for him as they are for me. He has as much of an influence over what we do as I do. We could end up anywhere and do any number of things. But, when it's over we both come back. I'll be back in my bed or in my chair and he'll be there beside me.

 

Meaningful conversation

Seems a few people (Riy in particular) have deep/meaningful conversations with their tulpa. Wonderland trips of self discovery, changing forms and names or grand adventures that feel more like novels.

 

Then there is me. My progress is much slower, it has become almost static and any new issues or ideas are tackled slowly and in often the most undramatic way possible.

When people struggle I laugh with Noah as we note how fortunate we are. We don't have issues, we don't fight, there are no wonderland monsters that pose hostility at all. Noah is incredibly powerful when it comes to those things. Rogue ideas are so few and so weak that they are immediately shut down with a playful nudge mocking how troubling they aren't.

 

In a moment of reflection I lay down on the bed and sprawled out. I had my ipod on and instead of some wordy song or dramatic piece it instead shuffled to a very laid back song. Take a

if you like, it might set the tone. Summer is coming and for once the night was warm. Noah lies beside me, he always does, no need to be under the covers when it's so warm. Even in the dark I can see him, I feel his presence almost as if he was a real person.

It's quiet. Nothing really needs to be said, I can enjoy his company because there is nothing to worry about.

"This moment is a good one because I have someone to enjoy it with."

 

Often when I think of something fluffy like that he'll nudge me with his elbow. That's just something he does, he'll say how embarrassing it would sound if I said it outloud and makes fun of it. In that moment though he didn't, he just lay there and silently nodded. Imagine a moment like that with someone important, someone real. Well, that's what it was like. Silence speaks volumes. Sometimes it seems like everyone is at war but us.

[CyberD]

Clarity leading to panic

I'm sure a lot of people have these moments. They catch a glimpse of themselves they don't like. Oh no, look at how far I've fallen, talking to this character I made inside my head..... and oh no, I've been doing it for months now.

 

Then they stop the process.

 

I've had plenty of moments like these. I look at Noah and he looks back at me. I wonder what I did wrong... why am I looking at this imaginary boy and talking to him as if he were real. Then I remember it makes no difference to anything and that I'd rather have him around than not.

 

I think people worry too much about appearances. About conforming. Having a tulpa is different, unusual and therefore unacceptable to society. Getting rid of it makes you "normal" again and I know there are some people out there who would rather feel normal than persist with something they put so much effort into.

If anything by having a tulpa I think more about these things which is a good thing. The more I see society the more I enjoy being different from it, the more I enjoy separating myself from most of it. I started this process to see what would happen and I have no regrets. Noah truly has become a part of my life even if I never expected him to become so. I don't care what others think of that because at the end of the day I'm just another normal person... who can still think rationally and who also gets to have a tulpa.

 

"I'm as real as I can be."

The process is what you make of it. Noah isn't usually full of profound wisdom but "I'm as real as I can be." has slipped from his mouth plenty of times now. That's not really profound but they are words to live by. I want to enjoy my time with him and so I do. Not everything has to be doom and gloom serious all the time. In fact despite appearances we spend more time having fun than being serious.

The other day we were discussing what would happen if Noah were a real physical person. The discussion quickly led to comparisons between fatherhood and having children. Being a caregiver, that sort of thing. I've talked about all of that before.

Right now when I work all the money I make goes nowhere but the bank. It helps no one but future me. Of course future me appreciates that but it means I am filled with bottled up emotions, the desire to help someone, to support someone who would be unable to support themselves... or to support someone simply because I want to help them. I have the capacity to do so but there is simply no one out there important enough to me to be that person. A real Noah would most certainly be that person. All of my efforts would go towards making sure he was as happy as he could be all the time. To making sure he was everything he could be. Maybe someday I'll have someone physical to direct that all towards.

 

Because it's incredibly difficult to spend money on a tulpa.

[CyberD]

What have you done this year?

The end of the year is almost here. It feels like it's gone by so fast.

I did everything I was going to do, but I did it with a tulpa.

 

Having Noah around has made my life more interesting with no negatives whatsoever. It makes me glad that I can say such a thing. He is included in my memories of all the things that happened this year. Not to say much of it was very exciting at all but he was there to see it just as I was.

 

There is no other experience quite like it. Having someone who shares your every memory just by existing. He knows how I feel about everything I've seen, he knows how I've changed and how I haven't. There are no secrets because there can't be.

 

I wonder about the longevity of the tulpa phenomenon online. Will there still be mention of tulpa in a year from now? How about five or ten? I know even if everyone online goes their separate ways I'll still keep Noah. Maybe I'll go back to calling him a character just like I did when I began. Tulpa often feels like a simple buzzword, a label for something that doesn't really have a very good name.

 

Everything changes over time. I have no idea what the future holds for Noah but I'm excited to find out.