Tulpas and the concept of no-self - am I a tulpa?

[kinokonekoni]

(Disclaimer: I'm still very new to the idea of tulpas so I might be misunderstanding several things - currently trying to resolve my existential crisis lol)

 

After I stumbled across the concept of tulpas, I did a bit of a thought experiment. Not committing to creating my own tulpa, but just exploring my mind, I guess. The first thing I realized was that I'm not my brain itself. I'm a single neural network within the brain. I reflected on all the times that I used to hold arguments with myself, claiming these internal "voices" as different facets of me, viewing myself as something more akin to the entire brain. I altered my perspective: I am just one of those voices, one thought-stream. I gave one of the other thought-streams a name, and attempted to talk to it. It wasn't so much "adding a new entity to the brain beside myself", but rather "minimizing myself" so that I could shape an entity out of the parts of the mind that I used to claim as myself.

 

Then I encountered the idea of no-self in Buddhism, and I've been trying to understand it and piece together how it fits in with everything I've experienced thus far. I think in my initial realization I partially touched on no-self -- indeed, I am not the entire mind-- but moreover, I'm not even a subset of the mind. What I perceive as myself is just an arbitrary collection of thoughts, perceptions, memories, all packaged together into a single unified thing that creates the concept of "me". And it is very arbitrary -- "I" can claim or reject certain thoughts as being "my own"; perceptions are constantly fluctuating; memories are fickle and cannot be trusted. To say that I exist as a subset of the brain's processes isn't quite right, because that implies that you could just... figuratively take those processes, point at them and go "this IS you". It would be more accurate to say that those processes are constantly generating the idea of me, the illusion of me.

 

Basically, I am not the thought-stream itself. That's where my initial realization went wrong. "I" do not truly exist at all. "I" only exist because part of that thought-stream is entertaining the idea that I exist and that I am that thought-stream.

 

The common interpretation of a tulpa that I've been reading online seems to directly conflict with the concept of no-self. It implies that the brain has a host consciousness -- by default, "you" -- and the tulpa(s), someone who is "not you". The host and the tulpa can switch, so that the tulpa is the one in control and "you" take on a backseat role, but can reclaim control at any moment.

So I've been thinking about how these ideas could be combined. Would it be possible to create a system where there are only tulpas? Perhaps they wouldn't really be tulpas, idk. But in any case, instead of just minimizing myself to a small subset of the mind and shaping an entity out of the other parts, what if I minimized myself to the point of non-existence, and treat all parts of the mind as "not me"?

 

Of course, from a practical standpoint, it would be nigh impossible to stop using the words "I"/"me"/"my"/"mine". The illusion of self is useful, even if it is an illusion. Hmm. Would this be like creating tulpas who each individually retain a sense of no-self? Each tulpa acknowledges that they do not truly exist, and uses first-person pronouns out of convenience only, including "me", right now? I guess what I'm asking is, am I a tulpa??

 

Anyway, I think I'm rambling... I hope at least some of what I said makes sense lol. And I hope I posted this in the right place :P Thanks to anyone who made it through this text wall! I'd be interested to hear any comments, insights, etc.

[Legion]

1 minute ago, kinokonekoni said:

Would it be possible to create a system where there are only tulpas?

I don't know if this is what you're talking about(and it's probably not) but sometime after we became a system, our original... fused? with a walk-in I suppose. Who no longer holds any connection to the original whatsoever. (We're not all tulpas due to some of us having different ways of entering the system, but the person who created Flare no longer exists.) -Link

[Ranger]

I prefer to use my terms cobud instead of tulpa and cocreation instead of tulpamancy

 

17 hours ago, kinokonekoni said:

Then I encountered the idea of no-self in Buddhism, and I've been trying to understand it and piece together how it fits in with everything I've experienced thus far

 

I don't know how Buddhists view consciousness as a whole, so I'm not comfortable explaining that angle. I'll only share my understanding of the self and the concept of "no self".

 

17 hours ago, kinokonekoni said:

The common interpretation of a tulpa that I've been reading online seems to directly conflict with the concept of no-self.

 

Yes, the concept of cocreation conflicts with the concept of "no self". Cocreation requires the distinction between "me" and "not me", but with "no self" you can't have a "me" in the first place. Both are just different interpretations of the human experience.
 

17 hours ago, kinokonekoni said:

So I've been thinking about how these ideas could be combined.

 

You can label anything as "I" or not, so ultimately your interpretation of yourself depends on what you believe. You can believe you are your brain, that you don't exist but your brain does, that you are your stream of consciousness and any "identities" are cobuds, that some identities are cobuds and some are you, etc.

 

I do suspect your interpretations can affect your overall experience though. Dissociation does break up what "your" and "other part's, yours or not" thoughts, feelings, and memories are most drawn from. If you do roll with "no self" as your interpretation, I don't recommend thinking, "no engaging in any specific hobbies, tending towards similar behaviors, or follow any goals/objectives". Given this interpretarion, the illusion of a self is important for making stable life decisions and maintaining any kind of relationship with others.

 

17 hours ago, kinokonekoni said:

I reflected on all the times that I used to hold arguments with myself, claiming these internal "voices" as different facets of me, viewing myself as something more akin to the entire brain.

 

17 hours ago, kinokonekoni said:

I guess what I'm asking is, am I a tulpa??

 

17 hours ago, kinokonekoni said:

currently trying to resolve my existential crisis lol

 

It's okay to have facets of yourself you talk to AND have cobuds. I personally don't recommend turning a facet into a cobud unless the idea the facet is "not actually you" feels right. It's typical to create cobuds from scratch with or without some personality forcing / backstory writing anyway :)

 

Edited Saturday at 12:30 PM by Ranger

[kinokonekoni]

On 1/10/2025 at 2:23 PM, Legion said:

I don't know if this is what you're talking about(and it's probably not) but sometime after we became a system, our original... fused? with a walk-in I suppose. Who no longer holds any connection to the original whatsoever. (We're not all tulpas due to some of us having different ways of entering the system, but the person who created Flare no longer exists.) -Link

 

Huh, that's super interesting. When you say they no longer hold any connection to the original, you mean they view themselves more as the walk-in rather than the original? So basically, your system consists entirely of tulpas/walk-ins/similar entities?

 

 

 

On 1/11/2025 at 7:26 AM, Ranger said:

Yes, the concept of cocreation conflicts with the concept of "no self". Cocreation requires the distinction between "me" and "not me", but with "no self" you can't have a "me" in the first place.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I'm trying to grapple with the existence/non-existence of some... "overarching" entity? "Main" entity? Someone who represents the body. There's "me" who's writing this right now, but depending on how I shift my frame of view, I'm not necessarily that main entity, and there may not be one in the first place.

 

On 1/11/2025 at 7:26 AM, Ranger said:

If you do roll with "no self" as your interpretation, I don't recommend thinking, "no engaging in any specific hobbies, tending towards similar behaviors, or follow any goals/objectives". Given this interpretarion, the illusion of a self is important for making stable life decisions and maintaining any kind of relationship with others.

 

Oh, for sure. It'd be pretty difficult to live life if you completely rejected everything that could be associated with an identity haha

 

On 1/11/2025 at 7:26 AM, Ranger said:

It's okay to have facets of yourself you talk to AND have cobuds. I personally don't recommend turning a facet into a cobud unless the idea the facet is "not actually you" feels right. It's typical to create cobuds from scratch with or without some personality forcing / backstory writing anyway :)

 

The thoughtstream I've been conversing with I initially perceived as somewhat a facet of myself, in an indirect way, I think. Maybe more like a facet of the supposed "main" entity representing the body. I wanted to start compartmentalizing the brain's thoughts in a way that made sense. But I'm beginning to notice I can't necessarily associate thoughts with him just because they fit with my original model of him. If I try to do that it's immediately apparent that they don't feel genuine (is this what people mean when they talk about parroting?) and there's a tangible resistance. Guess I'll go with the flow even if it makes me feel like I'm going a little crazy

[Legion]

1 hour ago, kinokonekoni said:

Huh, that's super interesting. When you say they no longer hold any connection to the original, you mean they view themselves more as the walk-in rather than the original? So basically, your system consists entirely of tulpas/walk-ins/similar entities?

Yeah pretty much

our original never had very much of an identity to begin with honestly

Edited Monday at 10:34 PM by Legion

[TurboSimmie]

I am not too familiar with the "no self" Buddhist idea, but one thing a lot of people have learned through tulpamancy is that there is more than just "you" up there, and that's not just you and your tulpas, but a whole bunch of stuff that isn't tied to any particular identity or personality. Our system uses colors to differentiate things: I am green, Phil is blue, James is red, and anything not tied to any of us is gray. One thing we've learned is that there is a lot more gray than we ever realized, and that it doesn't belong to any one of us more than the other, even if Phil (as the host) is more used to interfacing with it.

[The Incans]

It sounds like you are describing dissociative identity disorder. many people with that believe there is no ‘core self’ but all parts are equal.  All children start with fragmented parts of personality but in normal development these parts naturally join usually around the age 8-10.  

 

Severe trauma and some severe and ongoing medical complications during early life can prevent this happening. Eg the drug Phenobarbitone commonly used to treat epilepsy in infants/children in the 70’s is now shown to change the actual structure of the brain if given during the period that the brain is still developing.  I was on it up to age of 7 and am also Autistic (possible AuDHD) which is why I think my parts never 'joined as one’. I have always been highly dissociative and used it as coping strategy naturally long before I ever knew any of the medical definitions. 

 

When I say ‘I’ ..i am meaning the current legal personality of the body. I do have ‘others’ some who are deliberately created Tulpa’s and some who were created in childhood beyond my conscious control.  I had an higher rate of developing alters through the high school period (11-16)…some of these however may have only done one day of school if that day was particuarly bad (bullying wise), others may have done more than one day or done some of home social life too (playing with friends/cousins etc outside of school).

 

As a system ‘we’ consider them ’social mask’ hosts. There are some older ones who carry trauma from ‘inappropriate incidents from other men’ (ie outside of family …(eg a work colleague trying to trap us in a portacabin and wanting us to show him our breasts as we were very young emotionally and naive). 

 

Alot of our smaller fragments have re-integrated but there is still more than one ‘version of me’ (host) plus 3 fully sentient Tulpa’s and 2 more ‘in development’. ..(10 ’seperate’ identities altogether)

 

Edited yesterday at 11:55 AM by The Incans

[Legion]

8 hours ago, The Incans said:

many people with that believe there is no ‘core self’ but all parts are equal.

I think a lot of systems believe this in general -link

[The Incans]

25 minutes ago, Legion said:

I think a lot of systems believe this in general -link

I think there is a type of OSDD where there is one main host that never changes and alters are not as distinct. They may not realise they have it so the main one may feel it’s their body/their life more than other systems where hosts change more frequently and alters have more distinct differences between them. 

Edited 18 hours ago by The Incans

[Ranger]

19 hours ago, The Incans said:

It sounds like you are describing dissociative identity disorder.

 

I don't think there's enough context given to say it's DID or OSDD. I still believe in the possibility you can believe you have a disorder you don't actually have, and being median (having multiple headmates identify as one person) doesn't guarentee DID/OSDD either. I'm also uncomfortable giving anyone a dx, instead I'll say "that doesn't sound like or isn't cocreation" and encourage them to see a professional.

 

That being said, someone with "multiple pre-existing selves" could have DID/OSDD. I started to strongly suspect that one system may have had it once they presented signs of having trauma. But on the other hand, you can also have cobud systems with trauma and even dysfunction, which I have beem struggling to wrap my brain around for a long time, and it's a topic I don't feel comfortable ellabotating on publically.

 

19 hours ago, The Incans said:

Eg the drug Phenobarbitone commonly used to treat epilepsy in infants/children in the 70’s is now shown to change the actual structure of the brain if given during the period that the brain is still developing.

 

Interesting. I am skeptical and Googling it I didn't find anyone connecting phenobarbitone with DID, but research on DID is so limited I doubt anyone asked before.

 

---

 

I'm sorry if I'm being mean, I have strong opinions and I'm not always good at being direct. I also have complicated feelings about DID/OSDD in general, which may be wrongfully projected here. I'm still in therapy and working on that.