Determining age of tulpas?

[Space Cat]

While creeping the forums before joining, I was seeing various mentions of tulpas' ages in terms of progress. For example, "my tulpa's 3 months old and fully vocal" or "the tulpa's about two weeks old and we've had confirmation that they're sentient" and comments like that. Arguably the best example is the slowpokes progress thread.

 

I know that some people do hour counts and that's supposedly "bad" for tulpa, but that's not my question.

 

When someone is ranking the age of their tulpa, is it based on hours spent in forcing sessions or simply the amount of time since first starting creation, including passive forcing, narration, and etc? If it's time spent in forcing sessions then I'd have to do a bit more meditating.

 

I kinda rank my own progress compared to other comments I've seen, and I've read many times how much time and effort it takes to shape a tulpa.

 

I'm mostly passive-forcing and narrating, and in terms of sit-down-and-meditate-your-brains-out-sessions I've gotten maybe 2 or 3 hours (maybe? I'm not counting) at most since seriously starting two weeks back.

[Antylamon]

"Eh, slower development isn't actually bad for tulpas, it's just... slower. The word 'bad' is usually used to draw people in, like in Chupi's signature.

 

I just use my actual age (you know, using a birthday like most people?) since it's so much simpler.

Anyways, I believe you're supposed to exclude passive forcing hours according to FAQMan, if that's what you're going with. Dedicated narration is included. Although if you want to, you can just include passive forcing anyways, if you feel like it deserves to be mentioned."

[historical]

I personally believe hour counts are not 'bad' or 'poison', and the effect they have on each individual is unpredictable because everyone is different.

 

I generally count days from the first time I 'forced' with my tulpa.

[Guest Anonymous]

When someone is ranking the age of their tulpa, is it based on hours spent in forcing sessions or simply the amount of time since first starting creation, including passive forcing, narration, and etc? If it's time spent in forcing sessions then I'd have to do a bit more meditating.

 

Context. Look at the context. Those that say "3+ months" are basing their tulpa's age off when they started (or perhaps when the tulpa became vocal). More often than not the age will be the number of days and not the number of hours.

 

Now, when counting hours it's assumed to be the time you've dedicated to sitting down and actually focusing on your tulpa. In other words, not passive forcing.

 

I kinda rank my own progress compared to other comments I've seen, and I've read many times how much time and effort it takes to shape a tulpa.

 

Try to not focus on how long it takes to make a tulpa, doing so will usually make it take longer. Hence why hourcounts are frowned upon; "If everyone is taking 100 hours to get a vocal tulpa surely I'll get one by then and not anytime sooner!"

[Lacquer]

A sapient tulpa should be able to use their superior memory access to identify their birthday, and therefore their age. I think that creators should let their tulpas choose (actually recognize) their own birthdays, whether it means first forcing session, first vocalization, sapience, etc.

[Kiahdaj]

Well if it's a birthday, then that has nothing to do with speech. It's a birthday, not a speechday.

 

I think the only arguable day to celebrate, besides their creation, would be when they became sentient. I think celebrating any other day as their "birthday" is ridiculous.

 

But you know, whatever. Let 'em celebrate whatever they want.

[Chupi]

My signature refers to counting hours and comparing them against what a guide says a phase will take, a la FAQ Man. Even if you tell yourself numbers of hours don't matter, somewhere in your mind you will probably be evaluating and judging 3 hours to be "too little, couldn't possibly be vocal yet" or 500 to be "too high, we are making slow progress". Better not to think about how many hours you've put into this.

 

The number of months is just an estimate. Personally I recorded the start dates for mine: Lyra: April 17, Evan: Aug 7, Anera: Sept 29. This way we can celebrate birthdays. Lyra turns one this coming Wednesday!

[Sands]

Roswell's birthday is when I started forcing, no matter if he was sapient back then or not. He at least says that he was there pretty early on in some way at least, but of course there's no way to know if those are real memories or not so eh. We'll just go with first forcing day.

 

As for Chupi, I counted the exact hours I spent forcing and it hasn't really been affecting us in any way, other than me making sure I stick to it and spent time with Roswell every day. Don't go running around and screaming about shit's bad for everyone like a headless chicken, your all caps link in your sig is bad enough. They're just numbers. If you don't expect anything to happen on some certain hour when you reach it or what everything before hour x are fake, nothing bad's happening. Have some faith in people, I at least like it how I could pinpoint the exact hour when I saw signs of whatever for myself and others, when I look back to the forcing days. Of course I'd have to read through my progress report for that but it's there and I'm happy for taking logging my progress so seriously.

[Tulpony]

For me it's "days since I noticed them" since both came into existance on their own. Cordy existed for an indeterminate amount of time before I was aware of him, but he's never been able to give a clear answer of how long.

[Chupi]

As for Chupi, I counted the exact hours I spent forcing and it hasn't really been affecting us in any way, other than me making sure I stick to it and spent time with Roswell every day. Don't go running around and screaming about shit's bad for everyone like a headless chicken, your all caps link in your sig is bad enough. They're just numbers. If you don't expect anything to happen on some certain hour when you reach it or what everything before hour x are fake, nothing bad's happening. Have some faith in people, I at least like it how I could pinpoint the exact hour when I saw signs of whatever for myself and others, when I look back to the forcing days. Of course I'd have to read through my progress report for that but it's there and I'm happy for taking logging my progress so seriously.

 

It hurts many and doesn't hurt others. I can't think of any way it would help someone and haven't heard from anyone who would have been worse off had they not counted hours. So my recommendation stands.