From what I can tell.....

[Obsidian]

....to create a tulpa all you need to do is believe something is there for a while before it becomes an unconscious habit. It seems that creating an imaginary friend is the same process, am I incorrect though? This is certainly a different view than the semi-mystical/psychological viewpoint floating around these forums a few months ago (or more).

[Guest]

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[shibo]

It's like rasing a child.

You give them attention, you talk to them and spend time with them.

At the beginning, their can't talk but will maybe respond with a smile, or gesture. You will go ahead and wait for the first word, the first sentence, etc. They develop their character and sentience.

 

Creating a tulpa is the same, spend time with them, talk with them and and so on, till they create they character and sentience.

It's only so fast, developing sentience for a tulpa, because your brain did already the whole work and knows how they should develop.

Another reason why developing multiple tulpae/tulpas (What is the right plural version of tulpa?) is so quick. You know how it works and your brain did already the whole work, it just needs to repeat the process.

 

If you have doubt about the tulpa, it's like you doubt about your own child.

[MindSeeker]

I think, the whole phenomenon complex of tulpas is way too unexplored and the term "imaginary friend" much too broad, to make a hard cut between imaginary friend and tulpa. Maybe tulpas can be better classified as a special kind of imaginary friend. For instance, creating a tulpa by the guides on this site involves daily phases of focused attention and the goal of imposition, i.e. training yourself to see, hear, feel and smell your tulpa as if it was actually physically present. Those features make tulpas stand out, but apart from that, they have a lot of qualities, that imaginary friends may share.

 

It's actually got some (speculated) physiological roots in your brain's neural net.

 

A few days ago I stumbled on the theory, that during the development of the humans species, a few thousand to ten thousand years ago, the brain was hardwired into a "listening" and a "sending" part. It didn't seem too plausible to me, so I didn't look much into it. But from the Wikipedia entry it seemed to have gathered some followers. I can't remember the name of it, though. It did seem vaguely relevant to tulpamancing, though.

 

Apart from that, or any other very general physiological capabilities, like that humans have the ability to train themselves to see things, that aren't there, I pretty much doubt there are specific physiological roots for creating tulpas. If you got any links or references for that, I'd love to see them, though.

[Bin]

They're more like super imaginary friends, you're doing things with your mind you weren't intended to do and gaining access to mental abilities you didn't know you had. I liken it to giving your subconscious a face.

I highly doubt it's any pseudo-neural-science.

What the hell did you even say Xeare? You grew a second brain your own brain? Reading your post I'm doubting you even know what a neural network is.

And "brain's neural net" is redundant, the brain is a neural network. It's a network of neurons.

MindSeeker made the most sane post so far.

[frankwilliams]

....to create a tulpa all you need to do is believe something is there for a while before it becomes an unconscious habit. It seems that creating an imaginary friend is the same process, am I incorrect though? This is certainly a different view than the semi-mystical/psychological viewpoint floating around these forums a few months ago (or more).

 

There are a lot of different opinions on this, many of which contradict each other, and it's easy to get lost. I feel your pain, because I was in that same boat not too long ago. Sadly, you're going to get a lot of different answers in this thread, because the community is sort of divided like that. It's up to you to choose the answers that make the most sense to you, if any at all, and act on that.

 

With that said, I'll give my short answer:

 

It's not belief at all. You can believe yourself into a shallow grave and it won't do you much good if your brain doesn't know how to act on those beliefs.

 

What it is is giving your subconscious a careful set of instructions, and prompting it to act on those instructions. You give your subconcious a schematic of a personality (traits you want your tulpa to have), then you act as if that personality is already there right in front of you. You talk to it in your head, even though it will not respond for a while.

 

This causes discomfort, because it makes you feel like a crazy person. You are speaking to nothing and expecting a response. Your subconcious doesn't like you feeling like a crazy person, and it notices that you are expecting something that isn't there. So, it puts two and two together. It uses that blueprint you just gave it, and produces a reply to your talking to it. This is the first step. From there, it's mostly smooth sailing, because now you can interact with your tulpa.

[Obsidian]

That is the single best response I've found. Thank you, frankwilliams.