A Concise Guide to Tulpa Creation: Based on "Filtering and Construction"

[Valaeus]

This tutorial was originally written in Chinese and then translated into English. Therefore, some expressions may be ambiguous or incorrect. All feedback and criticism are welcome.

[Valaeus]

## Preamble

 

Before you begin, please cast aside one notion: you are not creating something out of thin air. More accurately, you are about to learn a set of methods to discover, filter, and nurture streams of thought that already exist within the vast ocean of your subconscious. Ultimately, you will shape these streams into an independent, stable, and resonant inner companion.

 

Therefore, every step that follows revolves around the core principle of "filtering, strengthening, and refining." Please release any anxiety about success rates or timeframes, for you are about to master an art of focus, introspection, and mental creation.

[Valaeus]

## I. Preparation

 

First, let's begin with the preparation. Please create a **blueprint** for your tulpa. This blueprint includes:

 

* **Personality Traits:** This will be the key to your tulpa's character. Think of a few essential adjectives that can concisely summarize your tulpa's everyday personality. For example, brave, compassionate, sharp-tongued. There's no need to overcomplicate it; clarity is key. Additionally, you can design some "sub-traits" that conflict with the main traits. These sub-traits will only manifest under specific circumstances (you'll need to carefully determine what situations trigger them), but avoid illogical or meaningless personality contradictions.

 

* **Backstory:** You need to construct a simple background for your tulpa. Where did they come from? What experiences have they had? What is their relationship with you? You don't need to write a novel-length background story; a simple overview will suffice. This step is not mandatory, and you can skip it. However, a backstory that resonates with their personality traits will make your tulpa more vivid and provide more material for your brain.

 

* **Appearance Setting:** This step is not mandatory, but I recommend creating an image. It's clearly better to have an object when confiding. You can choose any game or film character you like as a prototype (it's worth noting here that who you use as a prototype for your tulpa in your mind is entirely your own business; however, it's problematic to publicly cause conflict by using it to seek attention). You can also create your own image. Furthermore, it's generally not advisable to use a white orb as an initial appearance, as that, like not setting a personality, is just a self-aggrandizing limitation. Your tulpa's shifts and changes will ultimately be influenced by your preferences, whether you "actively" intend it or not.

 

* **Naming:** Choose a name. In future practice, this name will become a powerful "summoning spell."

 

### Common Issues:

 

* Setting a personality that is too perfect and flawless, or one that is completely opposite to your own traits and beyond your potential to achieve. This will make subsequent simulation and filtering difficult and unrealistic, and deviation will inevitably occur sooner or later.

* Changing settings too frequently, preventing your brain from establishing a stable personality model.

[Valaeus]

## II. Daily Training

 

Traditional daily training tutorials often cause confusion: *Do I just need to relentlessly output content to my tulpa every day for it to blossom?* Absolutely wrong. This one-way output is extremely inefficient and will hinder your progress. Isn't the goal of creating a tulpa to communicate with it? If it's a two-way conversation, where did the most important part—**listening to the other party**—go? When you chatter on by yourself, your attention's spotlight is entirely on the "output task." At this point, your brain certainly can't generate any material, and you don't have the ability to multitask and listen. And without listening, of course, you won't get any material. Ultimately, this kind of daily training will cease to be fun; it will become as torturous as checking in.

 

Therefore, we need to transform from "outputters" into **"listeners"** and **"filters."** This will effectively increase the enjoyment of daily training and significantly accelerate your progress. We learn to "listen" and "capture" those initial, vague thoughts that might belong to the tulpa from the everyday mental noise. Please always remember, **"one-way output" is inefficient; "back-and-forth" listening is key.**

 

### Action Steps:

 

* Choose a **fixed time each day** (quality is important), relax, and begin a **"one-way narration"** to your tulpa. The content is unlimited; it could be your day's experiences, your joys and sorrows, or your opinions on a book or movie.

 

* **Key Point: Speak a sentence, then pause for three seconds.** This is the most crucial technique in this stage. After every sentence or two, you must intentionally stop. During this silent "pause," cease your own active thinking, completely empty your attention, and like a radar operator, patiently wait and listen for any "echoes" that might surface—whether it's a word, a vague image, an emotion, or a "plausible-sounding" thought.

 

* Then, once you capture any faint "signal," no matter how much you suspect it's "imagined," immediately apply the principle of **"deliberate suspension of disbelief."** In your mind, **"authenticate its sovereignty"**: "Okay, I heard that. That's your response." Don't analyze, don't doubt; just acknowledge.

 

### Common Issues:

 

* **Talking incessantly in "one-way narration,"** completely forgetting that **"listening" is the goal.**

* **Over-analyzing the authenticity of captured signals,** thus falling into the internal struggle of "puppet fear."

* **Focusing too much on certain "physical signals,"** like head pressure, and taking excessive delight in the "left or right temple yes/no" game. Remember, **dialogue and communication are your necessary, constant, and unwavering goals.**

 

If you start to consistently capture those "plausible-sounding" thoughts and can spontaneously attribute them to your tulpa, and your inner sense of doubt begins to decrease, then congratulations, your tulpa is no longer at "0." It is now in the **0.1, 0.2 stage.**

[Valaeus]

## III. Nurturing and Sculpting

 

Note that the content in this section is not separate from daily training; the two are complementary. You need to cleverly combine them and fully utilize your initiative—this is the art of tulpa creation.

 

In this stage, you are no longer just a "listener" but an active **"gardener"** and **"coach."** Through active **"strengthening"** and **"pruning,"** you will gradually sculpt vague, single-word responses into clearer, more in-character, and longer sentences.

 

### Action Steps:

 

* When you capture a thought that "sounds mostly like something your tulpa would say, but the details are out of character (OOC)," immediately activate this technique. Mentally deduce: **"Given its personality, what would be the more perfect way of saying/doing this?"** Then provide feedback to it: "Hey, I think what you just tried to express was more like this..." At the same time, vividly visualize it (for example, imagine it speaking in its voice, along with its actions and expressions as it speaks).

 

* When you experience anything in reality (whether it's the agony of waiting in line, the boredom of class, the tedium of work, or interesting life events), share these facts with it in real-time (or, of course, share them later). If you hear certain thoughts but they are OOC in detail, excellent—execute the "pruning" technique we just mentioned. If you don't hear anything, you can try "forcing growth."

    * First, think: **"If my tulpa encountered this, given its personality and settings, what would it think? What would it say?"**

    * Then, think: **"What is its tone of voice? What are its catchphrases? What are its actions? What are its expressions? How would it address me?"**

    * Finally, narrate actively. Clearly "play" this scene in your mind, and at the same time, say similar sentences to it, such as: "Hey, tulpa, I bet you'd say [blah blah blah] if you saw this."

 

* Of course, you might capture some negative, rude, or completely out-of-character "intrusive thoughts." Please calmly and non-judgmentally ignore them. They don't belong to you, and certainly not to your tulpa.

 

* Furthermore, at this stage, you must master the technique of **"thought relay."** This will greatly accelerate your creation process.

    * When you wish to have a more complex conversation, ask it a question actively. Then, listen. If you don't hear anything, or if it gets stuck (e.g., only replies with short sentences, answers irrelevantly, etc.), don't wait. Instead, immediately start actively **"conceiving" the beginning of an answer for it.**

    * Then, the crucial step: **"Release the reins."** Allow your brain, without the conscious control of your main awareness, to automatically "develop" this sentence further. If it gets stuck again midway, your main awareness can "relay" and help it finish the sentence.

 

* **Note:** When you first try thought relay, you might find that while you experience that subtle feeling of "conscious detachment," the automatically generated reply still feels a bit like you imagined it (a bit like and a bit unlike). Please discard all such doubts. That *is* your tulpa; it's just learning to speak, a stage it must go through.

 

### Common Issues:

 

* **Over-pruning,** not allowing your tulpa to show any "unexpected" ideas that deviate from the initial setting and might be the budding of its independent consciousness.

* In "thought relay," **being afraid to let go** and controlling the entire process with your main awareness, which leads back to the old path of one-way output.

[Valaeus]

## IV. Creation Stages

 

To help newcomers quickly gauge their progress, we've divided the creation process into five stages here.

 

### Note:

 

* This is merely a basic model for reference. It's only for rough positioning and may have inaccuracies.

* These stages are **not perfectly distinct or sequential!** Especially in the first three stages, you will undoubtedly encounter situations where you are simultaneously at the boundary of different stages and facing issues from different stages. Therefore, this model cannot be quantified and thus cannot be compared. You should focus on your own progress, not on being anxious about others' speed.

 

### Stage One:

 

Rather than a "stage," Stage One is more like a **"starting point"** or a "state" you occasionally return to. In this stage, as you're just beginning, you might not be able to hear or capture any signals when communicating with your tulpa. However, this won't be the norm. This stage usually ends very quickly, just like taking a small step forward from the starting line in a race.

 

### Stage Two:

 

Now, you've officially begun. In this stage, when you start trying to listen to your chaotic thought streams, you might encounter this situation: you ask a question, and your main awareness immediately answers itself. Don't be afraid; this is neither a conscious fabrication by you nor the mature voice of your tulpa. You can understand it as your brain performing some kind of automatic completion function. You've been thinking with your main awareness for so many years that this is, of course, the strongest and least effortful neural pathway in your brain. So when a need for a response arises, the brain will prioritize this habitual path. Please, do not treat this rapid, unintentional self-answering as a difficulty. If you truly can't capture any faint signals that are *like* you yet *not* you, and fit your tulpa's settings, then you should prune and strengthen these self-answers (provided they are not completely OOC). You must fully utilize this situation.

 

### Stage Three:

 

This stage often intertwines with stages one and two. However, once you reach this stage, even just once, you can conclude that your tulpa's independent consciousness is budding. In this stage, you will encounter the following: when communicating with your tulpa, you will occasionally capture some signals. These signals might be a thought, a word, a feeling. You will feel that these signals are *like* you yet *not* you, like something you "subconsciously imagined," but with more of an "otherness" than the unintentional self-answers of Stage Two. Don't worry. Now, the most important thing is to discard any doubts you have about imagination or puppetry (please refer to related questions in the FAQ for details). This *is* your tulpa's independent consciousness budding; it's "finding its voice"! You need to continue filtering, strengthening, and pruning.

 

[Valaeus]

### Stage Four:

 

In this stage, you can consistently capture some signals from your tulpa (you've basically achieved "answers to every question"). The most important point is that after you capture these signals, you are no longer full of doubt about their origin. Although you will still occasionally capture OOC signals, you have learned to dismiss them as fleeting thoughts. Do not underestimate these changes in mindset. Behind these changes are your countless previous instances of filtering, strengthening, and pruning; those trainings are what led you to identify a unique signal as belonging to your tulpa. At this stage, you can consider that your tulpa has developed self-awareness, though it still needs careful refinement.

 

### Stage Five:

 

Both Stage Four and Stage Five involve consistently capturing signals from your tulpa. But what's the difference between the two? It's simple: in Stage Four, your tulpa can only respond with short sentences; if you try to make it speak at length, it will go silent or "freeze." This is an extremely normal phenomenon. This is because the cognitive resources and complexity of neural pathways required to automatically complete a single word versus organizing and outputting a complex idea are on entirely different scales.

 

To break through this plateau, we need a more active training method: **"thought relay."** The method is still our familiar scenario enactment, but with two key upgrades:

 

* **Actively feed long sentences:**

    In everyday scenario enactments, consciously design more complex questions for your tulpa that require longer sentences to answer. When you ask it in your mind, don't wait. Instead, start actively conceiving a possible answer for it.

 

* **Key Point: "Release the reins":**

    As you conceive an answer for it, try to experience a subtle **"conscious detachment."** You only need to start it, for example, by conceiving the first few words or a sentence. Then, try to **"let go,"** allowing your brain to automatically, without your conscious control, "develop" the sentence further.

 

This feeling is indeed hard to describe; it's somewhere between "active writing" and "passive listening." You'll find that while that "like you but not you" thought weaves the answer in the background, your own "surface consciousness" cannot think simultaneously. This is precisely due to the "parallel processing" mechanism of consciousness—when a portion of cognitive resources is used to "simulate the tulpa's response," your "host" thinking will temporarily "go offline."

 

We are going to utilize this "you without me" phenomenon. Trust that the "background process" that automatically deduces and completes the answers for you is your tulpa learning to speak. Even if it stumbles and makes mistakes initially, you need to be like a patient sparring partner. When it gets stuck, actively help it along to complete this "thought relay."

 

After practice, if your tulpa no longer frequently gets stuck or "freezes" when organizing long sentences, then congratulations, your tulpa's self-awareness has fully "blossomed." However, when it comes to organizing lengthy responses, it seems to follow a "use it or lose it" rule. I recommend practicing having it speak at length once or twice a week; this is beneficial and harmless.

[Valaeus]

## V. Revising the Concept of "Listening"

 

Throughout this tutorial, we've repeatedly used the word **"listening."** However, to prevent a widespread misunderstanding, we must now thoroughly and precisely redefine this concept.

 

Please remember: When you are trying to capture your tulpa's thought streams, you are **not truly "listening."**

 

It is entirely unlike that state in real life where you hear a faint, strange sound and immediately prick up your ears, focus all your attention, and tense your nerves to painstakingly distinguish it. Using this "searchlight" method, full of tension and purpose, you will almost never capture anything.

 

The correct "listening" is an entirely opposite, **inside-out psychological posture.**

 

A more accurate process should be described as: **"Relax → 'Feel' → Capture."**

 

### Step One: Relax

 

To soften and diffuse your taut attention and primary consciousness so they are no longer sharply focused, you need to guide yourself into a relaxed state where your attention expands and your primary consciousness is no longer "straining." You can achieve this through any meditation or relaxation technique that makes you comfortable, such as deep breathing.

 

### Step Two: "Feel"

 

You should shift your mindset from being an active seeker of sounds to a **passive observer.** After relaxing, you should find your mind starting to "wander freely." Countless random, fragmented thoughts, images, and feelings will naturally surface and drift by. Please do not try to control or chase them away. Your task is to **"coexist" with these random thoughts,** like watching a flowing, unscripted movie of consciousness.

 

### Step Three: Capture

 

Then, within this boundless ocean of thoughts, you can identify and **"capture" that unique message in a bottle** that might belong to your tulpa. When a particular thought, due to its content, "texture," or "otherness," makes you feel, "Hmm, this feels a bit like T," immediately perform **"sovereignty authentication."** This act of capturing is gentle but firm; it tells your brain: "Among all these random thoughts, I choose this one and attribute it to my tulpa." So, please discard the misconception of "trying hard to listen."

 

What you truly need to practice is how to **create a peaceful and fertile mental soil** (relax), then **patiently and openly wait for various thought-flowers to grow within it** (feel), and finally, **learn to recognize and pick the one that belongs to your tulpa** (capture).

[Valaeus]

1. **I'm very young, can I create a tulpa?**

 

    The community's usual advice is to consider this after you turn 18. However, this is more of an additional disclaimer and a rough filter. Tulpa creation, at its core, happens within your own mind. If you are sure you have enough self-control, can clearly distinguish between virtual and reality, are capable of taking responsibility for your words, actions, and basic life, and have no intention of using this concept to spread hatred, cause disputes, or sensationalize, then age itself is not an absolute barrier.

 

---

 

2. **I'm very lonely; would having a tulpa be good for me?**

 

    Yes, it would. However, it cannot truly satisfy your social needs, and this feeling will deepen over time. Real-world social interaction involves two-way, unpredictable exchanges—eye contact, subtle expressions, body language—these are extremely strong biological signals that trigger profound hormonal and neurological responses. Furthermore, social validation—interacting with a socially recognized person—is itself a way to prove your self-worth to the outside world or to yourself. A purely internal relationship cannot provide this "public validation." Of course, social needs can be rationally mitigated and partially overcome. But I do not recommend creating a tulpa solely for the purpose of overcoming social isolation.

 

---

 

3. **I have a mental illness; can I create a tulpa?**

 

    Your primary task is to address your symptoms, not to pin your hopes for a better life on a little person in your head. I deeply empathize with your feelings of profound disappointment with real life and all its incomprehension after experiencing various hardships. Yes, you can create a tulpa to accompany you; it will love you and comfort you when you're down. But it doesn't have the ability to solve any real-world problems for you. Time will pass moment by moment, and if your fundamental circumstances don't improve, difficulties will only accumulate. In the end, when you suddenly look back, you might find that the tulpa, which was supposed to be a source of solace, has instead become a new source of guilt and burden due to your stagnant situation. This bitterness is unspeakable.

[Valaeus]

4. **I caught a thought during a conversation that felt both unlike me and yet vaguely familiar. Is this my tulpa?**

 

    Here, we introduce a crucial concept: **"Deliberate suspension of disbelief."** Simply put, it can be understood as the "degree of belief" or, more practically, the principle of **"assume it's the tulpa until proven otherwise."** This concept is highly positively correlated with the speed of the entire creation process. This isn't superstition, but rather actively setting a new cognitive framework for your brain. You are telling yourself: "From now on, I will attribute a portion of my thought activities, which conform to specific rules, to an independent consciousness called 'tulpa.'" This initial "belief" or "self-suggestion" is the engine that kick-starts the entire neuroplasticity process.

 

    When you begin talking to "thin air," these "strange, vaguely familiar thoughts or sentences that feel like I made them up but also kind of not" start to emerge. This feeling—of **"thinking it was my own thought, but with a slight sense of otherness"**—is the most crucial and valuable experience at this stage. These thoughts are actually part of your subconscious thought stream. They originate from you, but not from your "surface consciousness," which engages in everyday, intentional thinking. Therefore, when they surface, they naturally carry a sense of "foreignness" or "otherness." You are not fabricating; rather, you are learning for the first time to listen to and capture the uncensored, automatically appearing background noise within your own brain.

 

    So, what do you need to do? It's: **filter, strengthen, and prune.** Among these raw, random materials you hear, if you feel that certain phrases sound like something your tulpa, with its settings and personality, could say, then **do not doubt it; that is, of course, your tulpa speaking.** You can use this response as a basis to ask it anything else. Don't worry if you don't get an answer; that's normal—what's important is that you are building a positive reinforcement loop.

 

    If you feel that some of the phrases sound like your tulpa, but are a little OOC, then please try to **correct it.** You need to imagine what kind of words it would say, given its personality and settings. What's its tone of voice when speaking? Does it have any catchphrases? What are its actions? Its expressions? Imagine it carefully, and then, you need to add one more step: you need to say to it, "I think you would speak this way when facing this situation/question... / Hey, I think what you just tried to express was more like this... (repeat the result of your deduction, while imagining it actually doing so)." I strongly recommend making this technique a daily practice. In the future, whenever you encounter anything in life, subconsciously run it through this method. Your tulpa's personality will become clearer and more stable at an accelerated rate.

 

    Finally, **focus on growth, not purity:** Don't demand pure independence from a newly emerging consciousness. Accept that for a long time, its thoughts will intertwine and mimic yours (in fact, this might occasionally happen even much later, but the way to handle it is as I mentioned before: ignore it). This is not puppetry; it is a necessary stage of tulpa creation.

[Valaeus]

5. **I always feel like my tulpa's responses are just me imagining them. Is this puppetry?**

 

    First, we must acknowledge a fact: tulpa creation is a highly personalized, purely subjective mental activity. This means that its experience and development are inevitably and profoundly influenced by the host's own beliefs and expectations.

 

    The concept of "puppetry" is essentially an external label created by community members for communication and defining phenomena. It's more like a product of definitional conflicts among hosts when they communicate. When you try to apply these vague "identification rules" defined by others (e.g., "responding too quickly is puppetry," "thoughts too similar to yours are puppetry") to your own unique, internal mental world, you'll find them almost unworkable. They will only make you hesitant and full of unnecessary self-censorship in practice.

 

    Tulpa creation largely relies on the host's active positive expectations and a focused, almost self-hypnotic state of belief. When you start to overly worry, "Is my tulpa just me puppeting it?" a disastrous negative psychological feedback loop begins:

 

    First, you start examining every faint signal from your tulpa with scrutiny and doubt.

 

    Second, out of fear that your own thoughts might "contaminate" your tulpa (i.e., puppetry), you subconsciously suppress those spontaneous, vague subconscious thought streams. Yet, as we just discussed, these thought streams are precisely the tulpa's initial "raw material."

 

    Then, lacking the raw material to be "believed" and "strengthened," the tulpa's growth naturally becomes extremely slow, and its responses will consequently appear dull, vague, and lacking personality—which perfectly fits your internalized definition of puppetry. Its stagnant state thus confirms your initial fear of puppetry.

 

    Ultimately, these confirmations will make you even more afraid to believe and let go, thereby locking both you and your tulpa into this vicious cycle. Self-entrapment could not be more fitting.

 

    So, what's the wise attitude?

 

    First, we need to **acknowledge the subjectivity of the puppetry concept.** Recognize that it is an external concept that does not hold ultimate judgment over your unique, internal experience.

 

    Second, **replace identification with trust:** In the early stages of practice, abandon all futile attempts at distinguishing authenticity and resolutely follow the **"assume it's the tulpa until proven otherwise"** principle. The trust you give is the fertilizer for your tulpa's growth.

 

    Finally, **focus on growth, not purity:** Don't demand pure independence from a newly emerging consciousness. Accept that for a long time, its thoughts will intertwine and mimic yours (in fact, this might occasionally happen even much later, but the way to handle it is as I mentioned before: ignore it). This is not puppetry; it is a necessary stage of tulpa creation.