Imaginary Friends and Tulpae

[FAQ man]

So many agree that a tulpa is an imaginary friend, but not all imaginary friends are tulpae. Well someone emailed me this: http://i.imgur.com/Tp6zd.gif

 

and when paired with Bluesleeve's post here: http://tmblr.co/Z9orfvJxaXol

 

I think we've got interesting grounds for discussion.

 

Why are there so many people with imaginary friends, but marginally less people who report seeing them with the senses/ actually getting replies and what not? Or, is this assumption wrong and are tulpae more widespread than we think? Why is it assumed that adults don't maintain imaginary friends, is it because they are less vocal about it therefore it is not reported?

 

discuss.

[Charlotte]

Isn't a tulpa just a sentient mental construct? I wouldn't call that an imaginary friend since imaginary friends usually require a form (Or else you're just talking to yourself) whereas tulpae do not (Or don't even need to talk for that matter). I'd probably go as far as to say the tulpa's form is it's own imaginary friend of sorts, but not your imaginary friend.

As said before, they're a separate consciousness, and don't even require you being aware of them to function. I believe that pretty much devoids tulpae of the title of imaginary friend.

[Guest]

Why is it assumed that adults don't maintain imaginary friends' date=' is it because they are less vocal about it therefore it is not reported?[/quote']Society, man. Society.

[FAQ man]

Well I don't think imaginary friends are dependent on form. I think the sentience is what separates the tulpa from other sorts of imaginary friends, obviously. But no, they're not just about form as people will tell you.

 

Like bluesleeve's post says, all the parts of tulpae have been reported by people who call them imaginary friends. Though the name is different it really doesn't change the fact that tulpae are related to ICs. You're talking to something and pretending it is there, visualizing it until it actually comes naturally to you.

 

So by building a tulpa you basically go through a series of motions, skipping the part where you puppet/ parrot the tulpa.

[Ishey]

My assumptions:

 

Your experience has proven that the longer you work on the personality the quicker tulpa becomes sentient.

Kids that make their imaginary friends don't work on the personality. They don't spend time pondering the traits, interests, behaviors, they only have a simple vague image of what their imaginary friend is like (at least i think it's like that, i would do it like this, but i didn't have an imaginary friend as a child) they get straight to narration.

with such a short personality work time, even after years of narrating and visualizing they don't get to the high level of sentience (at least most of them don't).

 

Although there were some people on /mlp/ who claimed to have sentient companions, not being familiar with the idea of tulpae.

A woman with a comforting guardian angel who would sometimes talk to her when she called him, and uh.. a writer? i think..

[Bluesleeve]

Hey, cool forum. Finally a place free of trolls.

 

 

Maybe it is just me, but I don't see any differences between the terms "Tulpa" and "imaginary companions". The biggest problem is, that imaginary companions come in so many forms, which are very difficult to distinguish because of their fluent passages between stages.

 

Imaginary friends can also have a sentient-only form. For example as a "guardian angel" or, there can be voices in your head you have arguments with.

 

An imaginary friend is what (1) is imaginary (2) and is also perceived as something imaginary by its creator. (Children often also know (2))

 

That pretty much leaves everything out except for the "there is someone in my mind, who isn't really there" thing.

 

As said before, they're a separate consciousness, and don't even require you being aware of them to function. I believe that pretty much devoids tulpae of the title of imaginary friend.

 

Please be careful, we do not know what a Tulpa is yet. It has also been argued, that a Tulpa could be a filter through which your unconscious is being expressed in dependence of your chosen personality traits. Without further research we won't be able to tell what a Tulpa or even IC really is.

Imaginary friends aren't necessarily dependent on their creators too. Some of them appear when they want to and some of them can even scare their creator.

[FAQ man]

Hey Blue, was hoping you'd weigh in on this. Like I said, I think that the term "Imaginary companion" encompasses tulpae but does not equal tulpae.

 

Also curious, what did that book you read have to say about adults and paracosms, Blue?

[Bluesleeve]

with such a short personality work time, even after years of narrating and visualizing they don't get to the high level of sentience (at least most of them don't).

 

Yes, but this could also be due to the fact, because they are children. Their mental capacity and experience are not sufficient enough to produce this kind of sophisticated construct.

 

I think that the term \"Imaginary companion\" encompasses tulpae but does not equal tulpae.

 

Hey dane! I am not convinced of this idea. In my eyes, Tulpa is the same as an imaginary companion which has reached a very high stage of sentience, independence and is a fully imposed sensory hallucination we have consciously created. Would you mind to give me a further explanation on your understanding of this?

 

Also curious, what did that book you read have to say about adults and paracosms, Blue?

 

Well, as I have written in the blog entry mentioned above, it wasn't too much - about one chapter (But still enough for a foundation). This is mostly because imaginary companions are being considered as a domain of childhood and studies were heavily biased. (Questions like: How old were you when you stopped thinking about the imaginary companion).

 

One interesting thing the author mentioned was a website named "Fred's Place" in 1995. I wasn't able to find it, but if anyone would like to do some research it was the "Cool Site of The Day" (12/7 to 12/13).

 

It is a homepage for imaginary companions. He wanted to give his imaginary companion "Fred" a platform to communicate with the outside world.

A quote from the book (website post):

 

(Does he know he dos not exist? I really do not know. I don't really want to ask. Massless people have feeling too you know.) Until now he has had absolutely no representation in reality and has begged me to be acknowledged as an entity even though he is without volume or mass.

 

As for paracosms, they aren't as uncommon as they seem to be. There can be a very sophisticated form, where even several people imagine its presence. For example there were two girls which created a shared imaginary world (Movie based on this true story: Heavenly Creatures)

They made clay figurines and spent countless hours on discussing interpersonal relationships and personalities until they couldn't distinguish the real from the imaginary world and eventually comitted a murder because of this.

Paracosms are more common in one's mind. I have to admit to own a few myself even though I thought I didn't at first.

This is when you daydream of for example being a famous or successful person. Young boys also often have paracosms where they would be heroes of war or knights. Young girls would dream about being a princess. You already create a paracosm when you play with toys.

 

If you are curious about this topic, then you should buy the book or look for other sources because it is too much to write about here.

 

[FAQ man]

As far as IC vs. tulpa goes, I think and a tulpa is a kind of IC, but not every IC is going to be a tulpa. For instance, you have the low level IC that is just parroted, that is not a tulpa but it is an IC. A tulpa is always an imaginary companion, but you're going to have levels of ICs that are not tulpae.

 

Ah, I see what you mean now. So everyone maintains paracosms. I looked on wikipedia briefly about it when I first saw your post, and was under the impression that they weren't something that was so common because of the fact that the article was written in a way that made them seem abnormal, I guess.

[Bluesleeve]

As far as IC vs. tulpa goes, I think and a tulpa is a kind of IC, but not every IC is going to be a tulpa. For instance, you have the low level IC that is just parroted, that is not a tulpa but it is an IC. A tulpa is always an imaginary companion, but you're going to have levels of ICs that are not tulpae.

 

Ah, I see what you mean now. So everyone maintains paracosms. I looked on wikipedia briefly about it when I first saw your post, and was under the impression that they weren't something that was so common because of the fact that the article was written in a way that made them seem abnormal, I guess.

 

So, we seem to have the same opinion on this. I thought you were separating Tulpae and ICs at some point.

 

Yes, I also heard about paracosms before I read the book and looked it up. It's described in very abstract manner on wikipedia.