How Did This All Start?

[konrad13]

Please include some possible positive benefits of having a tulpa in your story, such as assistance in spiritual endeavors, possible better memory, better insight, etc.

[jean-luc]

2 minds are better than one!

[KenzieK]

Actually, I'd love for you guys to read it before I post it on the school's website! Just in case I need to add, delete, or change some things. I'll have it up by tonight!

[konrad13]

Awesome!

[KenzieK]

Sorry it took so long guys! It turned out to be really long, and there's no link for it that I could give you or else you'd have access to my personal shit. I shouldn't even be posting this here but OH WELL. Feel free to criticize, please!!!

 

 

 

Tulpas: A New Psychological Phenomenon

Imagine: you’re sitting in your room, alone, and visualising a being. You’re imagining speaking to this being. You’re telling it stories, about your day, anything you can think of to say to it. You’ve given it a name. You’ve given it a form. It could be any form, from people to animals or anything at all. You’ve been doing this for a couple weeks, maybe even months, for a few hours each day. Eventually, the being speaks back to you. You didn’t make it talk, it spoke on it’s own free will. This being is what’s known to thousands all over the globe as a tulpa.

Tulpas are described to be a sentient hallucination that exists as a separate consciousness in your own subconscious. Basically, it’s an imaginary friend that has it’s own thoughts, feelings, and opinions that you can impose and experience as reality. Skeptical? Rolling your eyes right about now? Let’s take a look at how tulpas were discovered, how they are made, what they do, and what their hosts think about the phenomenon.

The idea of tulpas actually goes all the way back to ancient Tibet. The word “tulpa” actually translates into english as “thought form”. The dominant religion in Tibet is Buddhism, and Buddhism involves all sorts of meditation and trying to reach a higher state of mind. Tibetans would perform a certain kind of meditation where they would sit for hours everyday, focusing on one thing in their mind. Whether it be a household item, an animal, or a person. Sound familiar? When they began to experience the being as an imposed entity, they assumed they could manifest life into the world by thought alone. Little did they know they had stumbled upon a psychological wonder.

As a lot of subcultures begin on the internet, tulpas were discovered in the western area on 4chan, which is an imageboard website that has everything from cartoons and animals to porn and gore. On the paranormal forum, people began discussing tulpas as a metaphysical concept as Tibetans believe it to be. Later came a post on a website called Creepypasta, which is dedicated to writers who come up with chilling short stories. An anonymous writer (probably from 4chan) posted a short story about a man who was asked to conduct a psychological experiment. In the experiment he had to sit in a room and think about a being and speak to it daily. Eventually, the being manifested into existence and began to control and hurt the creator physically.

As interest in tulpas grew, more people read this unnerving story. Some took it as reality and tried to create their own tulpas, hoping to create life with their thoughts. Instead, they got everything they were hoping for… except a physical form. What they created were sentient, hallucinatory imaginary friends that sprung from the brain reacting to them talking to something that’s not really there. People began to take more interest in the tulpa phenomenon, and dedicated much of their time to find out what causes the brain to do this.

One of the websites that branched off of these discoveries was tulpa.info. A handful of 4chan users created this website for learning more about tulpas, and helping people create them. Though it started out as having only a few users in 2011, it has expanded wildly over the past year and now has over 4,500! It was here that the first of the creation guides were written. It is highly recommended that people do not follow the guides exactly but instead find their own ways of making a tulpa, since everyone’s brain is unique. The guides are only there to give a basic idea of how to make a tulpa. The psychology of it all can get confusing, but breaking it all down it seems to be a simple process.

The first step for anyone who wants a tulpa is to evaluate whether or not they can handle the responsibility that comes with it. They want you to ask yourself, can I manage all the time it takes to create one? Will I be able to put up with a separate conscious with me for the rest of my life? If a person can understand the responsibility it takes, then they should have no problem making one.

Next is a bit more complicated. In the tulpa creation guides, it is suggested that you imagine you’re in a specific place while you talk to this being. They call this a “wonderland”, or just a place to go to in your mind as you meditate so you aren’t just looking at the backs of your eyelids. Then, you can choose a form and name for the tulpa, but some people just imagine a cloud or something else without a specific shape to allow the tulpa to decide for itself what it wants to look like.

While you’re in your wonderland you imagine the tulpa and spend time with it. Spending time with your tulpa, whether you’re visualizing, talking to it, or giving it personality traits is called tulpa forcing. After hours and hours, days upon days, even months, the tulpa will begin to move on it’s own. Meaning instead of you making it move, the tulpa will move on it’s own free will without your consent. This is what is believed to be a result of the brain thinking that what you are interacting with is real, so the subconscious makes it real by making the tulpa move and talk without your conscious doing it.

A tulpa is made up of two concepts: sentience and hallucination. The sentience part of the tulpa is the part that makes up it’s thoughts, opinions, and decisions. The hallucination part is the form and voice for the sentience to control.

After months, sometimes years of more forcing can result in a fully imposed thought form. Imposition is when you perceive the tulpa as reality by hallucinating any aspect of the tulpa with the five senses. The people who make tulpas usually never stop forcing in order for the tulpa to stay strong.

Because tulpas are your subconscious, they have direct access to many things in your subconscious like dreams, memories, and why you’re feeling a certain way. Usually the tulpa is a hallucinatory projection that interacts with you throughout the day, but if you ask it to it can dig into your subconscious and retrieve forgotten memories or help you control negative emotions. Having this deep connection with the subconscious has resulted in people having better memory recall and fast math cranking skills. People from all over the world are doing different things to find out how the tulpa process works, what it does to the brain, and the extent of the tulpa’s abilities.

The biggest use for a tulpa is a forever friend that will understand you completely. After hours of headaches and episodes of doubt, people can have someone who’ll always be there for them that can’t leave or get sick or die. Because of the immense understanding they have for the people they “live” with, tulpas make incredible friends to their hosts. They’ll understand every decision you make and there have never been any reported cases where a tulpa has hated it’s host (that doesn’t mean they don’t get in arguments once in a while though).

The hundreds of people to do this, whether it was to do a psychological experiment, have a new best friend, or for self discoveries, hardly any have been dissatisfied with their tulpas. They describe the joys of spending every moment with their tulpas. From the tulpa’s first word to being completely imposed, the journey of a host is an interesting and thrilling experience. Most would never say that tulpas aren’t equal to people; their just like us, only without a physical body.

The tulpa topic is one that is controversial and will make people squirm in their seats with skepticism. Have tulpas been scientifically proven? The simple answer is no. On top of most people not even knowing about them, tulpas have many metaphysical myths surrounding them, keeping legitimate scientists from performing any research. But the biggest problem is this; how can something you cannot detect with the senses be proven? Tulpas are thought- forms, and thoughts themselves have been a controversial topic among scientists and philosophers alike for years. You simply can not prove thoughts, we only know that they’re there because everyone has them, and if everyone experiences the same thing then it’s automatically labeled as real. Now you may say that tulpas are probably not real then, because very few people experience it. However, there is a theory that millions have (weak) tulpas that they don’t know are tulpas. You may consider the tulpa process to be strange, but it’s not uncommon for adults to have some sort of imaginary friend to console with when they have no one to talk to.

Another thing to point out; having a tulpa is not equal to having a mental disorder. Most people think it’s the same as having Multiple Personality Disorder, but MPD is usually caused by a traumatic childhood event and pops up unexpectedly and without the person’s consent. After an episode, the person doesn’t remember that the other personality took over. MPD also causes severe identity problems. Tulpas, however, are made on purpose and does not require any traumatic event to happen. They can’t take over your body without you knowing about it, and you and your tulpa are two separate minds who know who they are and what they are.

Tulpas also are not any kind of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is something you’re born with, and giving yourself schizophrenia would require someone to change the chemical makeup of ones brain. One cannot give themselves a mental disorder simply by thinking.

The tulpa phenomenon is spreading everyday all over the world. Maybe you’ll think twice before judging someone on the street talking to themselves. Who knows, maybe someday it’ll even be somewhat normal for adults to have tulpas.

[Xantan]

Feel free to criticize, please!!!

 

I'm sorry in advance if anything i say comes out too negative, thank-you for writing about tulpas in the first place. I hate pointing out these flaws but i will, just don't feel like you need to address everything i say. This is purely ONE reader's opinion. That said, here are some things i felt could use revision. ("-" = category, "~" = sub-category)

 

- The introductory paragraph does it's job of leading the reader into the topic, but it could stand to be more concise and correct.

"Imagine: you're sitting in your room, alone, and visualizing a being. You're speaking to this being, sharing stories, talking about your day, or anything else you could think of to say to them. You've given them a name and a form. You've been doing this everyday for weeks, maybe even months. Eventually, the being begins to reply, and talk to you in turn. You didn't make it talk, it spoke of it's own free will. This phenomenon is experienced by practitioners the world over, but is know in the west as a "Tulpa"."

~ I felt the description of form was unnecessary, most people will just assume human tulpa, and it doesn't seem to concern the scope of the article to let them assume so.

~ I also changed some of the pronouns to "them" so your reader would immedietly get the sense we're talking about individuals.

 

- In your second paragraph, you use the word "impose" but don't explain the concept until nearly the end of your article. Maybe rewrite the sentence to describe the same thing without using the word impose (like "see"), or briefly describe what it means to have an imposed tulpa.

~ If you want nit-picky, i also think the first sentence of that paragraph should be simplified, maybe just write "...separate consciousness from your own."

 

- In the third paragraph you used "actually" too frequently. maybe change "the idea of tulpas actually goes all the way..." to "the modern origin of tulpa(s) can be traced all the way..."

~ I would also remove the part explaining how Buddhism is the dominant religion and involves all sorts of meditation.

~ It also wasn't Tibetans who did this, that's the nation. It was a sub-set of that population, the monks. I could be wrong about this but it seems to be like how not all members of the same faith are equally devout.

 

- In the fourth paragraph "western area" should be changed to something like "the west." or "western world" to indicate you're talking about the "western" philosophy, as opposed to the west coast or some such.

~ I don't have any big things to say about this paragraph except that you may want to remove the section in brackets, it appears to be solely your opinion, can't be verified, and seems to add nothing to the sentence.

 

- I can see you getting into the flow of your article and your thoughts read well.

~ I would change this "What they created were sentient, hallucinatory imaginary friends that sprung from the brain reacting to them talking to something that’s not really there." to something more like this "What they created were sentient, hallucinatory beings (you could use friends or w/e) as a result of the brain reacting to them repeatedly speaking to someone who isn't physically there."

 

- In paragraph five, i would change "the first of the creation guides were written", to "was" written, since your subject in the sentence is THE first of the guides.

~ Perhaps when you're talking about "the first step" add in that it should be considered a seperate person. It might even be a good time to talk about them as people, and how they can experience suffering. basically make the "they're not toys" argument.

 

- Paragraph six is pretty good, i'm sure someone else can give you advice on cleaning it up, or making it more readable, but i don't see any glaring flaws. considering the subject, good work.

 

- seven is fine, eight i have issues with some of the wording. Remove the word "of" from the first sentence. eg "...months, sometimes years, more forcing..."

~ next you wrote "percieve the tulpa as reality...any aspect of the tulpa". This seems to say you forget they're tulpa, but it could be me. i'd just change it to "real". In the second part, consider changing "any" to "all".

 

- In paragraph nine you wrote "tulpas are your subconscious" but it seems more correct to say "a part of your subconscious". not everyone makes their tulpa to be a representation of their entire subconscious.

~ "math cranking skills". i'm not sure if this is a common expression where you're from but it seems too pop-culture to me. maybe just write "faster math skills", but probably remove the word "cranking" either way.

 

- In paragraph ten, you wrote "forever friend". my problem with this is that it feels too much like a word that only gets used on the internet. i'd recommend changing it to something like "a lifelong companion", "a friend for life", ect.

~ "can't leave" sounds like a stalker, maybe try "will never abandon you" or something along those lines.

 

- Paragraph eleven, you should change "people to do this" to "people who do this"

~ You wrote "Most would never say that tulpas aren’t equal to people;". this double negative can be confusing to read. You should try re-writing it without the negatives.

 

 

- In paragraph twelve, you made some assumptions about thoughts and scientific research that i can't agree with. "Thoughts" are detectable with a number of measures of brain activity, and as such are proveable. That doesn't automatically mean we understand them, just that we have evidence outside of our subjective senses that they occur.

~ I feel the argument you make afterwards for why tulpa are real is a little weak, maybe even unnecessary. Do you feel your article does a good job of making that argument for you? if so, you might not need to overtly argue it.

 

- Paragraph thirteen, You wrote "made on purpose and does not require any traumatic event to happen". For ease of reading, maybe try "do not require any traumatic events to happen", or "do not require a traumatic event to happen".

~ you wrote "One cannot give themselves a mental disorder simply by thinking." i feel this statement is made too lightly. It seems possible to give myself severe anxiety by changing the way i think through behavior modification, or that i could possibly create a tulpa that wants to harm me if i believed, and expected, they would from the time of creation.

 

That ended up being way longer than i meant to spend on this, sorry for the length.

[KenzieK]

Thank you so much! I actually revised it a week ago and fixed a few things you mentioned (including that retched double negative).

 

I'll go through and change some others that I liked too. I was really nervous about writing this because it can get difficult explaining something this complex in one article without making everyone sound insane lol.

 

Thanks again!