Is tulpamancy a correct choice for a "hikikomori" for the event the Internet disappears?

[udsaki]

I am a "hikikomori" (no idea if the term is correct, I am not in Japan) and not talking to anyone outside Internet, and it is the only source of information about the world for me. But as I noticed long ago, the Internet is slowly getting ruined by governments, and the websites themselves shut down too for various reasons. Does it makes sense to create a tulpa and a wonderland as an attempt to shift from the now-empty world in case the Internet disappears or becomes unusable (because otherwise it will be no different from solitary confinement)? Do solitary confinement-like conditions help in tulpaforcing, or only do harm? In some article in Russian, I read that some people who are imprisoned for life manage to detach from physical world to the point they die shortly after. Is it possible to completely switch to wonderland this way, if I will be force fed by relatives/psychiatrists?

[Lucilyn]

Detaching from the physical world and dying sounds like a myth, maybe there were rare cases where people with no hope in life left in prison just let themselves starve to death though, can't call that a desirable end

 

anyways, you will never be completely cut off from all human interaction, that is a self-imposed state due to various fears about socializing, but there is NO healthy answer in it, NO answer for how to permanently get rid of loneliness, human brains desperately need at least a little bit of social connection if not a lot in order to be healthy and happy, the symptoms of complete isolation are unavoidable and that's why solitary confinement in prison is the worst possible punishment

 

tulpas can help like a crutch for time when you have no one to socialize with, but they can't fully fill the role of socializing with other physical humans, again for brain physiological-needs reasons (and also, as varied as imagined experiences can be, any purely-internal dialogues or imagined scenarios will become stale over time without outside input/stimulus/random conversations with people and so on - you seriously can't retreat into your brain permanently, it just doesn't work)

 

if you're depressed enough to be fully non-functional, you need psychiatric help pretty bad, which might include antidepressants that may or may not help (often trying many different ones is required to find one that works)

 

BUT, none of them will just magically make you happy when the physiological brain needs I talked about aren't filled, unfortunately it is generally not possible to be genuinely happy without real social interaction in your life

the suffering of being alone is a survival instinct of your brain forcing you to seek out interaction with other humans, because humans on their own die, it's how we are as a species

 

things like interaction with animals/pets, or watching videos online, are incomplete stimuluses that won't fully satisfy your brain's desire for interaction with other humans, they only help take the edge off of true loneliness

 

 

I don't know how to recommend you engage more with life/social life (especially in Russia), but it's important to make the efforts to meet and interact with other people, regardless of having been hurt before

when relationships fail, you have to try again and again

finding any community to be a part of, whether sports or a pub or volunteer work (at a charity or community service for your city or so on), could really save your life, and if you do find even the smallest real-life community to be part of, you'll find your brain becomes much healthier and the world feels much easier to live in

 

a tulpa can be a mental companion to help support you internally while you try to improve your life, but they won't be able to magically cure any problems that you yourself couldn't (trust me, I work together with the others in my system to try and improve our combined life's issues), they can just be a voice of aid when you don't have one IRL

 

I hope you muster the courage to improve your life, and maybe even improve others' lives in the same way for them as they do for you

Edited April 16, 2025 by Lucilyn

[udsaki]

Currently I am in some small communities on the Internet, though I can't enter bigger ones as they block me as I have certain privacy measures enabled. As for physical world, I just don't feel safe in it, because unlike the Internet, I don't have an option to properly quit a specific community without affecting others (if I use different nicknames everywhere) and I am stuck to one place usually (because studying or working there, and/or can't afford moving). So there is either the Internet or something else, but physical world seems to be out of the equation.

[Lucilyn]

As long as you leave the physical world out of the equation, you will suffer depression/other symptoms of loneliness

Like I said, online interaction, or tulpas, are only crutches, but they can't fully alleviate the physiological need for human interaction

[The Incans]

3 hours ago, udsaki said:

I am a "hikikomori" (no idea if the term is correct, I am not in Japan) and not talking to anyone outside Internet, and it is the only source of information about the world for me. But as I noticed long ago, the Internet is slowly getting ruined by governments, and the websites themselves shut down too for various reasons. Does it makes sense to create a tulpa and a wonderland as an attempt to shift from the now-empty world in case the Internet disappears or becomes unusable (because otherwise it will be no different from solitary confinement)? Do solitary confinement-like conditions help in tulpaforcing, or only do harm? In some article in Russian, I read that some people who are imprisoned for life manage to detach from physical world to the point they die shortly after. Is it possible to completely switch to wonderland this way, if I will be force fed by relatives/psychiatrists?

 I am very socially isolated due to location (not in a city) and disability which makes travel very expensive and exhausting. Also my last friend who I’d known since my teens died in the pandemic first lockdown and have only one sibling who does not live with me. I see him (and his partner) a couple of times a year but other than that spend most days alone. 

 

I do have a dog so I take him out for a walk but I can’t cope with lots of people and busy places either so I only walk him when no-one else is about. For my dog does give me enough but I’ve always been able to relate to animals better than people. 

 

I think there are some people that do not need social interaction at the same level as most of society. I have autism and have always preferred to live alone, I never married, never wanted to and never wanted kids. I cannot cope with intimate physical contact and cos most people even in a platonic friendship expect a bare minimum of interaction via seeing you in person/going out together etc I have found it very difficult to make new friends after being isolated during the pandemic. 

 

For me my Tulpa’s and dog give me enough…if you don’t feel you could get what you needed from just Tulpa or pets why have you decided to be a Hikkomori? 

[Lucilyn]

unfortunately, wanting to deal with social contact isn't related to needing it or not

we have schizoid personality disorder and similarly prefer to be cooped up alone and declining new relationships, however paradoxically (as happens with SzPD) we still get depressed with no socializing and crave it in some form even while we continue to turn down DMs and friend requests

 

but I do think just a little, like talking to family, can be enough to not go totally stir-crazy (with other complementary things like pets, talking online, watching streamers etc.)

 

but yeah "Socializing with friends" is the #1 scientifically proven method of improving depression symptoms, for example - it's really a big deal, even if some people need it less frequently than others

Edited April 16, 2025 by Lucilyn

[udsaki]

I was raised in the supposedly now-normal (why would one, say, prevent a child under 13 from socializing online?) "protect the children" environment, which resulted in me never having friendly relationships in physical world. At most, random conversations initiated by others infrequently. Fortunately, I could use the Internet all the time, so I always focused on it.

 

2 hours ago, The Incans said:

I do have a dog so I take him out for a walk but I can’t cope with lots of people and busy places either so I only walk him when no-one else is about. For my dog does give me enough but I’ve always been able to relate to animals better than people. 

I don't think I understand the point of animals. Can't talk to them about relevant stuff, but have to feed them.

 

3 hours ago, The Incans said:

I never married, never wanted to and never wanted kids

Due to health concerns (risk of it being damaged by a wrongly chosen person), I think I can only "marry" (without announcing it anywhere) a tulpa, if it even makes sense to say so. Same for "kids" (I don't even like the way humans reproduce). No idea about other regions, but at least in Russia, a lot of marriages result in divorces, and likely cause trouble associated with the latter.

 

3 hours ago, The Incans said:

I cannot cope with intimate physical contact and cos most people even in a platonic friendship expect a bare minimum of interaction via seeing you in person/going out together etc

I believe intentional physical contact without proper explanation (or with excuses that I don't consider appropriate) should be considered harassment. My friendships are done over the Internet in text, where I only provide the information I explicitly want. I don't like when people see my emotions which may happen randomly and not always in appropriate context.

 

3 hours ago, The Incans said:

For me my Tulpa’s and dog give me enough…if you don’t feel you could get what you needed from just Tulpa or pets why have you decided to be a Hikkomori? 

Don't underestimate the forum though. In my case I am talking about situation where the Internet disappears (if no proper backup copies of stuff are made) and there is literally nothing else in an empty room: just me, and, if created, the tulpa.

 

2 hours ago, Lucilyn said:

but yeah "Socializing with friends" is the #1 scientifically proven method of improving depression symptoms, for example - it's really a big deal, even if some people need it less frequently than others

I am depressed due to issues with computer technology, and unwanted socializing in physical world (living together with someone). I don't see how is socializing supposed to help here.

[The Incans]

14 hours ago, udsaki said:

I was raised in the supposedly now-normal (why would one, say, prevent a child under 13 from socializing online?) "protect the children" environment, which resulted in me never having friendly relationships in physical world. At most, random conversations initiated by others infrequently. Fortunately, I could use the Internet all the time, so I always focused on it.

 

I don't think I understand the point of animals. Can't talk to them about relevant stuff, but have to feed them.

 

Due to health concerns (risk of it being damaged by a wrongly chosen person), I think I can only "marry" (without announcing it anywhere) a tulpa, if it even makes sense to say so. Same for "kids" (I don't even like the way humans reproduce). No idea about other regions, but at least in Russia, a lot of marriages result in divorces, and likely cause trouble associated with the latter.

 

I believe intentional physical contact without proper explanation (or with excuses that I don't consider appropriate) should be considered harassment. My friendships are done over the Internet in text, where I only provide the information I explicitly want. I don't like when people see my emotions which may happen randomly and not always in appropriate context.

 

Don't underestimate the forum though. In my case I am talking about situation where the Internet disappears (if no proper backup copies of stuff are made) and there is literally nothing else in an empty room: just me, and, if created, the tulpa.

 

I am depressed due to issues with computer technology, and unwanted socializing in physical world (living together with someone). I don't see how is socializing supposed to help here.

 

I’m guessing you are young as you said “why would someone prevent a child under 13 from socialising online” ….  the internet in the home and computers like we have today didn't exist when I was under 13! 

 

I basically spent alot of time in the scenario you describe at the end ..in my bedroom with just my imagination and my ‘imaginary friends’ as they were seen as back then …I had no knowledge of things like Tulpa’s. I still had to go to school, college or work though how do you manage things like paying bills if you never leave your room? I’m not sure what the system is like in Russia if you do not go to work.  I guess these days you could get a job working from home and deal with people remotely. 

 

Why do you think the internet is going to disappear?  ..do you mean Russia having a closed system so people don't have access to the ‘world news and resources’ or internet going down for the whole of earth? 

[udsaki]

4 hours ago, The Incans said:

though how do you manage things like paying bills if you never leave your room? I’m not sure what the system is like in Russia if you do not go to work.  I guess these days you could get a job working from home and deal with people remotely. 

Yes, I will have to deal with people at some point, but I will likely reject any conversations not related to the work matters, for own safety.

 

4 hours ago, The Incans said:

Why do you think the internet is going to disappear?  ..do you mean Russia having a closed system so people don't have access to the ‘world news and resources’ or internet going down for the whole of earth? 

Because the Internet and computing in general is already not what it supposedly was earlier. Various countries, not only Russia, introduce Internet censorship and take down a lot of content worldwide. Computer users get harassed by things like surveillance and forced accounts more and more as software gets updated. While workarounds for all this stuff exist at the moment, it doesn't mean it will be so forever. Even if the Internet itself will continue to exist, at some point I might consider to quit.

[Lucilyn]

a tulpa could keep you some company after quitting the internet, yes

 

I just want to make it clear that they can't satisfy all the psychological needs for human interaction and shouldn't be thought about as such

they're a friend (or etc.) in your head who, within the limitations of your brain's ability to simulate someone else (pretty decent, but still only your own brain at the end of the day), can be talked to about things and offer their own perspective, and provide a sense of companionship

not enough to replace IRL human relationships, but enough to not be unbearably lonely when you're alone, to some extent

Edited April 17, 2025 by Lucilyn