Unconscious host, Astral projection or Egregor?

[MadMax]

We have roelplayed with a lot of people, and explored some metaphysical concepts regarding tulpamancy with some of our roleplayers. One of them have said that they have started seeing our main tulpa, char, when it is close to bed time when. They know we are asleep. I'm curious if it is possible for a tulpa to astral project with the host is asleep, or if this might be an egregor, a tulpa shared by multiple people with a codifying lore shared between them solidifying the egregor themselves. Or if our friend basically made a personal tulpa themselves of our tulpa.

 

I recognize that, all in all... It could simply be their imagination.  

[bunnymustdie]

If you see your tulpa as purely a spirit, then perhaps it visiting another person can be possible. In this scenario, I wouldn't even refer to the phenomenon as astral projection, but simply a spirit giving another person a visit.

 

This view has more nuances to it, however. If the tulpa is intimately intertwined with you, would this affect their ability to function as a spirit and to visit others? How about them functioning as a spirit in general and doing anything else? Robert Monroe in his books on astral projection has mentioned accounts where one spirit he was interacting with in the astral was unable to see, and barely able to hear another spirit that was accompanying him. Apparently the two spirits were of very different "vibrations" and this caused one to be unable to detect the other. Would a tulpa as a spirit face similar challenges when trying to interact with beings outside of the host? What is a spirit anyway, and are tulpas a special type of spirit? These are things to consider if one is to consider a tulpa as a full fledged spirit, and also has interesting implications regarding the person that was able to see your tulpa.

 

I personally can't give a satisfying answer to these - I've encountered situations that led me to suspect my tulpa can be a spirit, perhaps at least in part, but I don't have definitive proof for myself either way, purely spiritual or mental, and have learned that such labels are not that important over the years. Perhaps they can even be a mix of both.

 

Egregors in the occult sense are typically much more heavy duty than a tulpa. They supposedly take a lot of effort and psychic/spiritual oomph, as well as a great amount of interaction with people to make. Someone else asked about egregors earlier this year and here is my response to them. There's a lot more details in it than what I answered above, and hopefully it can be helpful here:

 

 

It's also important to note that if you have a spiritual view of your tulpas, they can theoretically interact with other people or beings without being an egregor. There are plenty of accounts, both good and bad, of non-egregor entities interacting with people. Your tulpa is still a perfectly fine and impressive friend, even if they are not an egregor.

 

To be more specific, there are also accounts of spirits that are already strongly linked with an individual human interacting with other humans - most of these are accounts of negative spirits as described in Robert Bruce's book on Psychic Self-Defense. Unfortunately, I have had personal experience with this sort of phenomenon, so I can at least verify for myself that spirits attached to one person can influence another given the right conditions.

 

 

3 hours ago, MadMax said:

or if this might be an egregor, a tulpa shared by multiple people with a codifying lore shared between them solidifying the egregor themselves.

 

 

This definition sounds very odd. "Egregor" is an occult concept, and its definition has nothing to do with the Tibetan, mystical sort of tulpa. The occult concept of "egregor" also has been around for a long time and predate the tulpamancy type of tulpa (stemming from the internet/4chan, and often times presented as a purely psychological/mental phenomenon)  by decades, possibly centuries. The definition you listed above has casually mixed a much older metaphysical concept with a modern, usually mental based concept. It feels like it's something perhaps generated by an AI or by someone who is not as well informed on metaphysical stuff trying to shoehorn an occult concept in tulpamancy for unknown reasons.

 

I apologize if my response here sounds critical. I believe that definitions of concepts should be kept as clear as possible, this helps to both avoid misunderstanding (in multiple communities, be it tulpamancy or metaphysics) and prevent people from accidentally messing with something more dangerous than they believe when they experiment with occult stuff.

 

What you described, however, sounds like what's sometimes described as "System Hopping" in plurality communities. Here's a post by someone on this forum with a similar type of experience: 

 

You can try to compared what they described with your experience, and see how much of an overlap there is. There's also more accounts of system hopping in other places online. The philosophy behind system hopping is not set in stone. I've seen people convinced that the new headmate they "received" is the exact same headmate that came from the previous system. On the other hand, I've also seen people who believe that the new headmate that supposedly hopped in from a previous system is a new being that they made - similar to your description of your friend making a personal tulpa off of your tulpa.

 

Of course, there's always the possibility that it's just your friend's imagination, especially if the phenomenon you described only happened a couple of times.

Edited December 18, 2025 by bunnymustdie