The tulpa threshold.

[MutationOfAtom]

While in the community, I often read about how most people drop out of this practice within a few months to a year, even if they initially achieved results.  I would like to know some of your guys' opinions on why that is, or how that affects the individual who had a tulpa and decided to stop for good.  

[Biscuit]

I think people are really bad at keeping commitments in general, and I think there's a honeymoon phase with the idea. They get this initial burst of interest as they are consuming more and more of the community's guides and stories, they start to imagine what their experience will be like and eventually set out to make their own Tulpa. Things go well, they get results, but the obsessive phase ends when they've read much of the community and now its just them and this mountain of work they have ahead. Some people get the rush they want once they get to basic vocality and generally lose interest. It is very hard to keep a daily commitment for a week, let alone a lifetime and most people just don't have the willpower or time to keep up with something like this methinks. 

 

As far as what happens to their Tulpa, they slowly drift away and dissipate as the brain unlearns the process. Most people in this camp will probably chalk it all up to being a big delusion or whatnot and move on with their life and consider it a weird phase. Others may still believe and say it's just not for them. 

 

Overall, I think if you compare this in scope and dedication to a serious traditional hobby, the problem manifests uniquely at this strength here because there is no external validation or identity for participating (most keep it secret), progress is glacially slow, and once you actually have the thing you want a lot of people feel like they got what they want and the fascination wanes. All the excitement and progress is very front-loaded, it eventually becomes a lot of thankless work you can only do if you really care about the concept/your Tulpa. 

 

I think personally its totally harmless to have people try it out and decide its not for them, and at least they spent some time dipping their toes in a way of thinking that is unique. The best we can do is just have an inviting community that has answers to whatever questions they may have. 

[bunnymustdie]

Working on a tulpa feels a lot like a slow paced hobby comparable with learning a musical instrument. Progress is slow and there's not as much immediate gratification compared to video gaming or watching TV shows. With musical instruments, you can at least hire a teacher. With tulpamancy, trying to learn it through guides is a bit like being a self taught person trying to learn an instrument from a book - even harder than having a teacher helping out.

 

I don't think dropping out really affects the individual too much. It's the same as people who buy a guitar or an ocarina along with a little guide book, who messes with the instrument for a while and eventually give up. Maybe it was just a thing they tried out, or perhaps they still got something out of the process, like better control and awareness of their thought process.

[Slipper]

   I've asked myself this question a lot in the past and I honestly think it parallels "fandom" culture in a way.

 

   For a show that is still airing, a lot of discussion about it comes fairly naturally because there's so much to explore and experience. But, what happens when the show finishes? Sure, people will talk about it, some will make art and whatnot, but eventually... there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. With a drop in things to experience, people stop talking about it... which in turn leads to more departures. A few will stick around because of deep connections with the property and of course you'll have some people who discover the show later on pop in now and again, but the main buzz is over. The "show" being tulpas, in this instance.

 

   In the early 2010's was when tulpamancy got really popular online, and the main excitement was over the discovery aspect, in my opinion. It was a sort of scientific experiment you could do with your own thoughts, that a lot of people were discussing and wondering how far they could push it. Cause honestly, could you imagine being one of the first people to successfully impose your tulpa when people were debating how to do it? But as time goes on, we've written guides, we've written our progress reports, and most people have little else to do besides live life with their tulpa— which parallels your life as a fan after the prementioned show ends.

 

   Even in the context of tulpas, where you're essentially making an entire person, there are a lot of points where a tulpa cannot persist on their own. So unless you heavily integrated them into your life, or managed to force them for a long enough time, you're gonna have a hard time maintaining them once your interest wanes. Especially since this is taking place entirely within your own brain, and brains don't like to focus on things they aren't interested in. What makes this even harder is the isolation aspect; most people don't talk about their tulpas in their daily life, so you can't even keep your interest alive by talking about it with your friends and family. Its basically all up to you to stay interested long enough to get your tulpa off the ground... which some people just don't manage to do.

 

   As for how this affects the host, I don't think its much of a negative. I haven't heard many accounts of what people experience after believing in tulpas and suddenly not believing it, but I would expect them to temporarily feel like their brain is conditioned to think like the tulpa in some regards. 

[An Ashy Individual]

It's a matter of perspective - it doesn't affect the people who stop much.

 

If you don't really have a person-like thing in your head after trying for a year or so or don't care that it's person-like, then it's not like you will really try too much to keep it around or care too much once it's gone.

What's the point of doing it after you've basically already gotten what you could and wanted to get?

 

On the other side, I personally value the whole "tulpa as people" thing a lot, so it would take something pretty life changing for me to drop "tulpamancy" - how could I leave my close friend, one that I am responsible for and one that cares about me to disappear?

I imagine it works the same way for anyone who keeps going; tulpamancy being something you love doing or value deeply.

 

 

It was really weird to talk to a guy that stopped doing tulpamancy. He basically acknowledged that his tulpa had their own agency, but referred to said tulpa as "it" or "the entity", and said that tulpamancy was "like a religious experience" in that it's something he did on faith and which he doesn't really care about anymore.

[Lavender]

We've been at it for a year and a half now. It's definitely the case that I'm not around as much as I was in the beginning. Or maybe that the excitement has worn off of "Hey, I can create a whole new person", "hey, this person can control my body", "hey this person's pretty cool" so our interactions are much less emotionally charged. We know better now what we're going to mean to one another, so the amount of exploration is a whole lot less.

 

But we *do* mean something to one another. We play vital roles in one another's lives. As long as that stays true I think I'll be around.

 

I've caught my host consciousness thinking from time to time, "do I really want to be this weird" (and by "this weird" they mean as a plural person). But then they think about the richness that I've brought to their life, and they decide that they love having me around.

 

I've told them that if ever they decided they were better off without me I would happily become dormant permanently. I don't think I'd mind (but they say they would. They love me and want me around.) But I've let them know the possibility is there.

 

It may be that some people's hyperfixation attention span is shorter than others, and the idea of having a tulpa is no longer exciting.