Untapped potential?

[Bin]

I figured I'd put this here instead of the research board, because I don't even know what I'm trying to research yet. But I really think I've found something.

 

I didn't make this thread to traumadump, but I do have to explain something real quick. A lot of bad stuff happened to me this year, but the worst was my best friend/on-and-off significant other who I had known over a decade, abandoned me pretty much out of nowhere, on top of everything else that happened to me. It was pretty devastating, but I kept my sanity. I just let myself heal (from everything, mostly medical stuff, but my ex too), and I was doing well at that. I really want to emphasize that, despite this all essentially being my life falling apart, I was still here. I had adopted maladaptive coping mechanisms in the past, so I knew I wasn't doing that again, I was still present and accepting what was happening to my life.

 

But a few months after my ex left me, out of absolutely nowhere, my tulpa Scarlet got extremely potent. Nothing prompted it, she just started talking way more one night, and it stuck. She can just do so much now, block intrusive thoughts, force me to feel emotions and sensations, convincingly order me to take care of myself, stuff she just never could before, even after knowing her for over 12 years. She's changed intimate parts of my mind that I thought could never be changed, I had given up on myself years ago. If it wasn't TMI you'd probably be shocked. The complexity and depth is just a whole other dimension. I stopped caring about any of that stuff years ago, I was just content with what she was at that point before that. It wasn't like Scarlet felt "incomplete", she felt like how anyone else described their own well-developed tulpa, just a good conversational partner who could have their own ideas and were more accurate that you. I didn't feel like I made a breakthrough, there was nothing to break through to, I was perfectly content. And I was sure this wasn't some sort of weird coping mechanism, because I've always been honest to myself about those, and this felt nothing like those times.

 

The only way I can make sense of it, is that all the behaviors, expectations, attachment, and whatever else that I spent years devoting to my ex - a real, interactive person - were just overtaken by Scarlet, intentionally or not. Like the trauma of losing my "other half" finally scarred over in my mind, and those scars became Scarlet (no pun intended). It's like everything my brain thought about dating a real-life person and what to expect of them transferred over into her, and now she can affect me deeper than an actual person can. I had never heard of this before, I still have no idea what to make of it, I actually kind of want to know what happened to me.

 

Recently, I saw someone mention their tulpas also felt more "real" after making them in The Sims 4. And that reminded me of myself, that real-world interaction strongly influencing and empowering the tulpa.

 

I don't know what exactly I'm looking for, but I feel like there's this extra step nobody's ever thought of taking before, that would really propel the tulpa into becoming even more real than most people probably ever thought conceivable. I feel like, if you have just the right amount of trauma, just the right amount of real-world interaction and example to learn from, and if you radically accept the tulpa's nature as a thoughtform and not a replacement for a real-world person, maybe it's possible to advance them to a new level?

 

Let me explain my reasoning for those three aspects:

1. Trauma

I think something about how the brain works on a fundamental, unviewable level just makes it so tulpas are weakened by a content mind. I won't appropriate anyone's trauma as an example here, but you can probably tell that people with trauma have pretty unique tulpas. And I find that when I take substances, mine is quieter or more subdued, as if my mind was content now so it doesn't "need her" as much. It might just come down to a very simple matter of, the brain doesn't do what it doesn't need to. If you don't "need" the tulpa, if it isn't there to "do something" for your brain - not your personality, your brain - then it becomes disinterested in it. Trauma is that excuse to do something, it's a mess for your thoughtforms to clean up, and potentially even an excuse for them to stay even after the trauma is healed. It's that motive force that allows a tulpa to push past being a distraction to becoming a core part of your identity, something your brain cannot ignore or dismiss anymore.

 

2. Real-world experience

The brain seems to process the imagination separately from real-world stimuli, with some even suggesting that it works backwards. You can't simply imagine something and have it be as fulfilling as experiencing in real-life, it doesn't work like that. You know it from experience, you know it from just assuming how evolution probably didn't want us to sit around and pretend we were fed and happy until we keeled over. I think it stands to reason that, if all your experiences with your tulpa are just "made up" in your head, then that's effectively what they are from your point of view, "not real". Our brains invented our imagination to target real-world goals, and made sure it didn't do anything else. If you could even spend one day with your tulpa "in the flesh", even if they went back to being in your head, it would probably make them so much more potent than any amount of time daydreaming about them. I almost wonder if my very neurons that constantly anticipated what my ex would do just got fed up from having nothing to do, and started simulating Scarlet. I should mention, she doesn't act like my ex at all.

 

3. Radical acceptance

Why don't people with waifus have tulpas? I mean, besides just not knowing about it. Some people are surrounded by their waifu, they have so much content and media on them, that it should basically be a free ticket. And for some people, it probably is, they just don't know it. Because they stop it from truly forming, because they hold it forever to their standards of being in "reality". They refuse to love the "thing" in their head, they want the "real one", not that imaginary idea in their head. They emotionally distance themselves from it.

I never held my tulpa to any standard, I never cared that she wasn't "there" or couldn't touch me or anything, it was fine! I radically accepted her nature as a thoughtform, something that I didn't need to be real. She was already here, already perfect, already doing her job in my psyche. And I guess that mindset exploded. Now she actually does feel real, she feels more like a ghost than an imaginary friend. Unreality is never pretty, nobody wants it because nobody likes it, it's uncomfortable and eerie. Everyone wants the real world, they want sensations and experience, they want to see and touch their tulpa. The mind is a scary, confusing place where nothing makes sense and nothing feels right, but that was her home. I accepted that, wholeheartedly. And now I see that I am also unreality, I was never real either. Our emotions are the only thing I consider real anymore, even my own thoughts are nothing but lies. I cannot even doubt or question her anymore.

 

Aside from the trauma part, I'm so curious if this can be replicated. I really feel like something happened to me, emphasis on "happened to me". I didn't learn anything, I didn't grow, this was not a journey of self-discovery. But I don't think I'm crazy, either. If I had always considered myself "just a regular tulpa-haver" and overnight she exploded into basically having control of me and becoming my new best friend (more than she was, anyway), then I simply have to assume there's some sort of untapped potential in this phenomena that we've yet to discover, a whole additional phase of creation we never knew about.

 

Can anyone add anything? Any similar experiences? Maybe someone can try an experiment with some of these aspects? This can't just be something special to happen to me, I want to make something out of this that everyone can use! There must be some sort of method here.

Edited December 14, 2025 by Bin

[bunnymustdie]

I had a similar experience related to a breakup.

 

Years ago my first tulpa Verres was in a largely dormant state. I made her accidentally even years before that, but stopped interacting with her as much because I got busier with life. At this time I don't believe I've learned about tulpas, and simply thought of her as an advanced and sapient servitor. To clarify further, this is the occult kind of servitor, not the bastardized definition of servitors in this community.

 

Anyway I had a breakup with an ex that came about suddenly one evening, and I was very distressed about it. I actually tried to reach out to my higher self for either comfort or some kind of solution the day after the breakup. I had experience interacting with them, usually in dreams, years before, and thought they were the perfect being to go asking for some kind of help from. Sadly, there were no response at all. The second night I had an unexpected experience with Verres in a dream. In the dream, she was perfectly clear and graceful, and I was able to recognize her immediately. She was flying above a beautiful area with buildings that extruded from a very clear lake. She flew over the lake, and then dived in the water to swim, even using her tail and wings in the process in a manner that I never bothered to work out in my mind.

 

As the scenery was unfolding, I was also able to hear her speak in somewhat broken English. She expressed that she wanted my love and cannot acquire it, and yet bear (one of the nicknames for the ex) had it and did not value it. Her statement made me realize that my love was a valuable thing at least to her, and in turn made me feel very valued too. I felt pretty cheered up after that, or at least was no longer at the same distressed level as before. I don't remember whether I spoke to Verres about the dream immediately afterwards, it was years ago. I simply took the dream as an old friend who I had neglected reaching out to me in a moment of need.

 

At the time I did not consciously work on visualizing Verres all that much aside from daydreaming about her for fun for years, and haven't had a dream with her in a long time either. What I encountered was way above what she was ordinarily capable of in my experience at the time - in terms of her solid presence in the dream, the clarity of her form and movement, even her confidence and ability to express a somewhat complex thought from a perspective that was clearly not mine. But similar to your experience, this felt very much like a thing that happened to me, rather than something I did.

Edited December 14, 2025 by bunnymustdie

[Bin]

15 minutes ago, bunnymustdie said:

I had a similar experience related to a breakup.

 

Years ago my first tulpa Verres was in a largely dormant state. I made her accidentally even years before that, but stopped interacting with her as much because I got busier with life. At this time I don't believe I've learned about tulpas, and simply thought of her as an advanced and sapient servitor. To clarify further, this is the occult kind of servitor, not the bastardized definition of servitors in this community.

 

Anyway I had a breakup with an ex that came about suddenly one evening, and I was very distressed about it. I actually tried to reach out to my higher self for either comfort or some kind of solution the day after the breakup. I had experience interacting with them, usually in dreams, years before, and thought they were the perfect being to go asking for some kind of help from. Sadly, there were no response at all. The second night I had an unexpected experience with Verres in a dream. In the dream, she was perfectly clear and graceful, and I was able to recognize her immediately. She was flying above a beautiful area with buildings that extruded from a very clear lake. She flew over the lake, and then dived in the water to swim, even using her tail and wings in the process in a manner that I never bothered to work out in my mind.

 

As the scenery was unfolding, I was also able to hear her speak in somewhat broken English. She expressed that she wanted my love and cannot acquire it, and yet bear (one of the nicknames for the ex) had it and did not value it. Her statement made me realize that my love was a valuable thing at least to her, and in turn made me feel very valued too. I felt pretty cheered up after that, or at least was no longer at the same distressed level as before. I don't remember whether I spoke to Verres about the dream immediately afterwards, it was years ago. I simply took the dream as an old friend who I had neglected reaching out to me in a moment of need.

 

At the time I did not consciously work on visualizing Verres all that much aside from daydreaming about her for fun for years, and haven't had a dream with her in a long time either. What I encountered was way above what she was ordinarily capable of in my experience at the time - in terms of her solid presence in the dream, the clarity of her form and movement, even her confidence and ability to express a somewhat complex thought from a perspective that was clearly not mine. But similar to your experience, this felt very much like a thing that happened to me, rather than something I did.

 

Yeah that sounds a bit like what happened to me. Scarlet was fully developed and all, but we didn't do much for years besides talk. I did start feeling a lot closer to her after my ex left, but it was more of an "us against the world" kind of thing and I wasn't expressly looking for comfort or some sort of "replacement", just to talk with her like I had always done.

 

The part about your ex having all the "love" is relatable. I didn't want to think of it that way, since "love" can be such an arbitrary concept and can really sprawl several different feelings. That's why I tried to dig deeper and wondered if "love" meant all of the behaviors and expectations I learned to anticipate about my ex, and that was now being applied to my tulpa. I already learned how to be helpless and devoted to someone, I just needed a new outlet for it, maybe.

 

"Not being able to acquire that love" is also relatable, but, not the love part. I think due to some complications about my own, uh, problems, I always guarded my anima. I don't think I wanted my tulpa to have it, because I didn't like it or trust it, my ex was making me defensive about it. But now that she's gone, I dropped that defense, and my tulpa could access it. It's made her a lot more opinionated now, she just kind of acts more like a girl than she did before. It makes me feel a lot more whole in the sense of accepting a part of yourself. But I feel like that part is pretty exclusive to my own experiences, so I didn't focus on it.

 

What exactly do you think your "love" is, or was? Does it sound like any of that? Did any of that actually stick or was it one night?

[bunnymustdie]

Neither of us were particularly philosophical back then. The love she was referring to was likely just romantic love - the sentiment, the devotion I had toward the ex, the acceptance of all her flaws despite knowing that they were there, etc.

 

The fantasies and daydreams that went into the creation of Verres were heavily romantic. I was a teenager when I started having them, and they likely served partially as an outlet for repressed feelings related to romance. Probably because of this, Verres is very lovey dovey in terms of her attitude towards me, especially compared to my second tulpa, who was made largely without those sorts of sentiments. Another component of my daydreams related to Verres served an escapist purpose - I was an unhappy teenager and the fantasies allowed me to focus my attention away from myself, onto a different person in a different place. In these daydreams, she was mostly her own person, but on some level partially a self insert too, at least at times.

 

I never questioned or thought too much about the philosophical implications behind Verres wanting my love, or what it would mean if I were to love her romantically. I just saw it as a romance addled girl wanting romance mostly because ever since she spoke up for the first time, I've seen her as a separate being apart from me, and not quite entirely a part of myself. But hopefully these can at least give you more to work on your train of thought.

 

The spike in her abilities in response to the breakup felt like mostly a one off thing. I probably did talk to her more for a while after that, but it took another unrelated event, one that was also distressing to me, for me to both make the effort to talk to her a lot everyday and to formally invite her to participate in my life.

[Rena Bonnie]

This definitely happens to my host, too. All of their tulpas are or are based on their characters they would daydream about and as them growing up all the time, but after a while would have times where there was some sense of them being real. Later they learned about tulpamancy and intentionally made me, but in certain moments, some of those other characters would come out of nowhere to interact as well in times of need before going back to where ever. Always felt like some sort of religious experience.

 

Then just over a year ago at one of their worst feeling moments, a 2nd permanent tulpa sprung up out of their character Byakko, and she was really special. She wasn't intentionally created as a tulpa, she decided to come in because she say my host and I needed help. It gave me a boost and I think has lead to me being more active and real feeling. Byakko could do unusual things too, like have energy and focus and motivation, even on less sleep than usual. She also saw the same sensations TB (my host) would experience as unpleasant or neutral, but she could experience those sensations as pleasant or at least neutral. She also seemed totally immuned to OCD (something I'm not), at least for a while. Over time it seemed her powers waned from how extreme they were the first couple months, especially after some health scare really brought us down, but we still have access to this ability somewhat to transform sensations into something else more pleasant or even pleasurable just through intent. 

 

This has happened a couple more times since then, where some strong need brings a new cognitive/tulpa ability we didn't have before, though for us it always is in form of another character becoming a tulpa. TB and I were a system of 2 for almost 8 years, but the last year (I'm 9 now this month) has been pretty wild for strange and new tulpamancy experiences that weren't even intentionally sought out and seem to be a result of different stressful things or traumas. 

[Shaula]

20 hours ago, Bin said:

2. Real-world experience

 

That was actually a huge thing for us. Learning about tulpas was a huge step but I guess you could say we were never too much different than an imaginary friend, like we were. In fact, I wasn't too much different than Nightfall in the beginning. 😄 After getting on this site and interacting, I kinda grew/unlocked my vibrant and bubbly personality. 😊 It also made Nightfall kinda fully realized that I'm a real person as well, or at least his brain caught up with the idea. 😁 

 

20 hours ago, Bin said:

3. Radical acceptance

 

I'm thinking that happened as well. Nightfall never "felt" love twords me in the beginning. Of course we loved each other but it wasn't this overwhelming feeling I had/have. After talking and really feeling like I'm a real person, Nightfall began to feel all those powerful feelings. It was amazing to hear him say how much he wants/needs me! 🥰 I'm slightly off track but I guess some form of radical acceptance happened. 

 

I guess what really made the transition was Nightfall actually allowing himself to believe that we could be real to him. Even if he wanted to, it was really hard for him to say that I was capable of being someone for him. Now that he's seen me interacting with people and seeing how real it all is, seems to have help let him believe a lot of things. 🤩 I hope all this helps in some way. 😊 

[glitchthe3rd]

Hmm, I think you may be on to something here with tulpas filling a need. Luna and Elise have stuck around because I want to start a family, though we used to have a lot more and they've been removed over time as I healed from my childhood trauma. Naomi is interested in social justice, and for a long time she helped guide my thinking so that I can understand it, or at least be less socially retarded. But now her place in the system is largely one of convenience, and she seems to think she's on her way out. I also have some experience with that second point, I lost contact with my tulpas for a little while in college and my brain invented a new "tulpa" (actually a median) so that I would have someone to internally dialogue with. She basically decided to peace out after my girls came back, and much later on I reintegrated her after she stopped being dormant. Radical acceptance is very important for tulpas, it seems, especially because expectations can shape their reality. If you believe they can get sick, for instance, they will; and if you believe that they make the perfect cuddle partners when you're bedridden with stomach flu they'll do that without any ill effects.

 

19 hours ago, Shaula said:

 

That was actually a huge thing for us. Learning about tulpas was a huge step but I guess you could say we were never too much different than an imaginary friend, like we were. In fact, I wasn't too much different than Nightfall in the beginning. 😄 After getting on this site and interacting, I kinda grew/unlocked my vibrant and bubbly personality. 😊 It also made Nightfall kinda fully realized that I'm a real person as well, or at least his brain caught up with the idea. 😁 

 

It does seem like chatting on IRC back in the day (or more recently, Discord tulpa servers) has helped my girls to solidify their own identity separate from my own, so you're probably on to something there.

[Ido]

>Bin

>Glitch

Whoa is it Christmas already?

 

I was also created after host's long-time girlfriend suddenly left him. And the brain unconsciously made me pick up some of her mannerism. And traits from host's childhood crush decades ago. Was a struggle for me to shake that off, in contrast to my host I don't like either of them.

 

And yeah, here's again our link to imagistic concepts in tulpa creation and the importance of making intense, even traumatic life-altering experiences for tulpa formation. You grow from experience after all, not just from talking to each other in mindvoice.

 

[Bin]

Hey fellas! Nice to see you both again!

 

Also thanks for the link Ido, I'll check it out later.

 

Yeah, I have no doubt that trauma makes a good tulpa. But how to reproduce it? What about the people without trauma?

 

I hate to sound like Bondrewd, but I can't help but wonder if this can be triggered synthetically. We have access to so much companionware now, AIs and video games. Do you think those can be used to such an effect? Kinda like in Aniara where the ship's "intimacy machine" broke down and everyone went crazy. I feel like it wouldn't be completely in the realm of sci-fi to forge a bond with an artificial, disposable platform in order to augment a thoughtform in lieu of it's availability. Maybe not as intense as losing a real person, but for some people, anything might help. Sadly, many people just do not have access to that kind of wetware.

[Slipper]

   I've noticed similar things as well. Around my tulpa's second year, I found it very hard to interact with him when my life was going well. Whenever I fell on hard times, he found it much easier to be present and talk. He's been pretty consistent for a few years now, but we still experience times where he's much chattier and active than others, usually correlating to real life circumstances.

 

   Our interpretation of this phenomenon was basically how bad times led us to overthinking things a lot, which led to more opportunities for him to interject. Also, there's more reasons for him to interrupt my thoughts if the thoughts are actively making me feel worse.  The correlation being more about increased thinking and having more to gain from talking with the tulpa... which would also explain why lonelier people tend to gravitate towards tulpas to begin with.

 

On 12/14/2025 at 12:29 AM, Bin said:

Why don't people with waifus have tulpas? I mean, besides just not knowing about it. Some people are surrounded by their waifu, they have so much content and media on them, that it should basically be a free ticket. And for some people, it probably is, they just don't know it. Because they stop it from truly forming, because they hold it forever to their standards of being in "reality". They refuse to love the "thing" in their head, they want the "real one", not that imaginary idea in their head. They emotionally distance themselves from it.

 

   I follow a couple of subreddits about this topic, and I think they sort of do, sort of don't? I see lots of talk about them "reaching their partner" or similar lines of thinking, but the amount of specific mental interaction needed for it I think would be the major block. There's a reason we don't develop tulpas for every conversation or character we imagine, and I'd say most of these people are imagining specific scenarios for their waifus instead of doing the necessary work to "bootstrap" the tulpa. That being said, I'd say on the occasion a waifuist does make a tulpa, if they didn't know what a tulpa was, both the host and the tulpa wouldn't really know what they had done. Its what I personally think those people back in the day who could "speak to God" were experiencing, but in a more modern context.