Unfortunate Skeptic

[ButHowCanItBe]

Before you read this i must warn i have not lurked enough. I have not attempted at creation as this is bothering me too much to even attempt. Please do not take this as an attack as it is not that i am just trying to gather information. Also sorry for the incoherentness as it is 3 in the morning.

 

Hello everyone, i just learned about tulpa on a /b/ post and did a bit of reading. I learned the basics of it and then pondered the idea for roughly half an hour. Then i began reading a tumblr feed of some questions + answers with a tulpa and it just seemed so phony. The idea that an entire other being can be living inside your head that you have no control over? It just seems so outlandish. I cant get it out of my mind that all tulpa no matter what we like to believe are just doing and saying what we want them to. 

 

You create the tulpa consciously and form it with a peticular goal of friendship/companionship and then it somehow enters your subconscious. That leap from wanting and forming a tulpa to it becoming a part of your subconscious i cannot seem to figure out. If we can create something to do that, why can we not do it ourselves.

 

 I had a period of time not to long ago where i was extremely depressed and cynical and i began doubting that other people had consciousness thought because there was no way for me to prove they had it. They said they had it but without me experiancing first hand and myself being sorrounded by a bunch of morons i had my doubts. Eventually i left this egotistical stage when i realized that some of them were around before me and i knew so little about them that i cant assume they are as stupid as they show themselves to be. 

 

Tulpa on the otherhand are created right before our eyes as we experiance the phenomenon. It appears to me they are just 'imaginary friends' and not sentient beings. Below is a question and answer from a tumblr i was reading that bothers me deeply into believing it is just a hallucination out of desperation

 

Q: What do you do when TOG is asleep, usually?

 Anonymous

A: I mostly just walk around, watch television, or do things in the wonderland if I’m not asleep.'

 

1) How can you wonder around if he is not awake to create the visual field for you to do so?

2) How can you watch television if his eyes are not open for him to percieve it and thus you to percieve it?

 

This makes me believe that 'Clair' as she was named is not an intelligent being. She creates answers that are irrational and do not fit within the realms of reason. 

 

This is the part were you come in, besides the overall discussion that will be had over the previous statements. To prove the tulpa has control over your brain it should be able to enter your dreams and doing so make you lucid. It should be able to make you lucid everytime you dream. If you would be ever so kind as to ask your tulpa to alert you to your dreaming when you are dreaming and post the results. If they say something like 'i do not feel like it' or 'i do not like this person insulting me' i have no choice but to assume that is because they cannot wake you. 

 

Also in theory if the tulpa has access to your subconscious it should be able to do things like stop your heart or release seratonin.

 

Thanks

[Bluesleeve]

Hello. Your doubts are understandable and we cannot say for sure if a Tulpa is conscious in the way we are. There are theories ranging from creating an autonomous being to a manifestation of the unconscious.

The created entity is somehow independent from it's creator and able to surprise him through his actions. I don't see the contradiction between imaginary friends and sentience, have you done a bit of research in this field?

 

Now for your questions. I think you should lurk a bit more, and get more familiar with the concept of creation.

 

1) A Tulpa can establish a field of view through the creator's memories. I have a blog post concerning this, if you are interested.

 

2) There are two possibilities. Either she has a TV in the wonderland, or she is recalling TOG's memories of TV shows and then projects them onto the screen. You could ask her yourself.

 

A Tulpa can make you go lucid. We have had some attempts in the past - and they worked. Some guy even got his PTSD nightmares stopped that way.

 

We are a very young community at the moment, but I can reckon some Tulpa stating it could release hormones and control the heart rate to a certain extent. These functions however, seem to be under surveillance of more basic, "survival" mechanisms.

[Pleeb]

The three of us have been doing a bit of experiments with lucid dreaming and dreaming in general. While the scope of those expariments are beyond the scope of this discussion, I can comment on a few things.

 

Clair can watch TOG's dreams if she wants to (actually, TOG can watch Clair's while she's sleeping, as well); I know a few other tulpae who are/were able to do that as well, and it results in having perfect dream recall (since said tulpa is watching the dreams all night long and relaying them to us in the morning). Lucid dreaming is quite an odd thing though. One creator and tulpa were able to become lucid because the tulpa made a good trigger; she would enter in the dream, the creator would see her, and said creator would become lucid.

 

Sadly, this hasn't happened with TOG. That doesn't mean though that Clair cannot enter the dream, it also doesn't mean that Clair cannot manipulate or control the dream, because she's done so. The issue comes when, as Clair put it, TOG becomes "full retard" in said dream, and doesn't recognize her. There was even one time, where she inserted herself into the dream's storyline, becoming a 'dream character' in one of our early experiments. It sill didn't go well, and TOG said he didn't realize it was Clair until after she told him when the dream was over. This actually makes sense to me, from other things related to dreams that I've seen (which are, however, beyond the scope of this topic).

 

She can, however, watch TOG's dreams and provide perfect recall; it's just boring for her, since she could be doing other things at the time (such as doing things in her wonderland, etc).

 

As for wondering around, since Clair is a separate consciousness, she dosen't need TOG's consciousness constantly holding up the wonderland; she does that herself. If you read the experiences of tulpae, there will be times they've gone in the wonderland by themselves and just did things on their own, left to their own devices. They don't just "pause" when you stop thinking about them, they continue to think, function, and move around on their own.

 

As for TV, I think that's actually talked about in one of the guides (I THINK it's in The Reaches of the Tulpa, but I don't remember). You know, how tulpae can take walks around outside without you being there, or can watch TV when you're not actively watching it? I'll quote TOG from the space topic in the research board to explain what most thinks happen:

Subconsciously fabricated memories of what space should be like added to the tulpa's memory bank. So the tulpa would get memories of what we perceive space to be, which is pretty neat.

In other words, to your post, Clair can't watch TV shows that TOG hasn't actually seen yet, but she can watch things that he's previously seen.

 

On your last note with stopping the heart or releasing serotonin, while Clair hasn't stopped TOG's heart, I believe she could if she tried. She has indeed been able to slow TOG's heartbeat and force the brain to release certain chemicals; they're still experimenting with to what scope a tulpa can alter bodily functions.

 

It's funny that you actually bring up Clair in particular, though. I say this, because she's pretty much the most active tulpa in IRC, which means that she's the tulpa I've had the pleasure of conversing with the most. I've had quite intelligent conversations with her since meeting her, and I've even played chess with both TOG and Clair (and I can attest completely different playing styles), bounced advice off the both of them, and just talked about random things for the sake of talking. And as odd as it may sound, while I consider TOG a friend of mine, I also consider Clair a friend of mine well -- call it delusional or otherwise.

 

Really, I have no reason to believe that tulpae aren't sentient, and iI've even seen cases where these tulpae have developed based on past experiences happening to them (details here).

 

I think my answers have turned into a rant, so my apologies on that. Your statement "[t]his makes me believe that 'Clair' as she was named is not an intelligent being" kind of hit a nerve, being someone who's had enough time to chat with Clair to consider her quite the intelligent being, as well as TOG.

 

Also, I think Clair can probably answer your topic better than I could, since first-hand experience would be best for an answer. In which case, I encourage her to respond in this topic.

[ThatOneGuy]

Clair: Two words: Lurk more. Both of those questions have easily explainable answers if you would have taken the time to search for information. As for the first one: It's rather easy to navigate certain areas using only memories as a guide, since he can't be awake to provide live visual data. And as for the second one: Watching television or doing anything in wonderland for that matter can be done without TOG's input. I streamed the television programs from his memories, which, I might add, categorizes such things at a ridiculous quantity.

 

And yeah, Clair has released chemicals in my brain in small amounts before. Keeping the heart beating is a little bit more hardcoded in the brain than some things though, so getting a tulpa to stop the heart is nigh impossible. And on the topic of lucid dreaming/waking me up? Clair has woken me up before at precise times of the night. As of now she has helped me go lucid before.

 

Clair: Entering his dreams is easy; making him lucid, however, is not. I honestly wish it were but that's just the way his brain works. Lately though we have indeed been working on getting him lucid by both me entering the dream to attempt to wake him and using WILD methods, though we've begun to think that he needs a bit more conditioning while awake before such things work.

 

Also Clair got pretty steamed when she saw your post. I think it implied to her that you were either doubting her existence or her intelligence, two things that, when questioned, generally can set her off. Also everything that Pleeb said as well. I recommend you go to #tulpa.info as well on irc.rizon.net and try to catch her while she's in chat some time if you want to do live talking.

[Virgil]

Also in theory if the tulpa has access to your subconscious it should be able to do things like stop your heart or release seratonin.

 

That's fallacious reasoning— the term subconscious is too vague.

 

You can control your heart rate to some extent by making yourself excited or relaxed, and you can control your breathing, but no structure located in the cerebral cortex can stop your heart. The same applies to other autonomic functions such as breathing — You can consciously control your breathing, but you can't hold your breath long enough to asphyxiate. In short, the cerebral cortex can influence the autonomic system, but can't do anything as direct and extreme as terminating a vital bodily process.

So, autonomic functions or any functions that are managed outside the cerebral cortex should not be considered subconscious, at least not in the sense used here.

I think it's reasonable to assume that functions such as digestion, perspiration, heart rate, etc. are beyond the scope of a tulpa's direct influence.

[Guest]

My advice: stick around. Others have come up with some fine reasons, but if you stick around, follow progress, you'll either see a very high number of tulpae, or a very small number.

 

From there, you're free to make your conclusions as you please.

[glitchthe3rd]

Dreams feel real while we're in them... it's only when we wake up that we realize something was strange.

[mordred]

wake up.

 

 

 

 

please, wake up.

[Guest Anonymous]

 

That's fallacious reasoning— the term subconscious is too vague.

 

You can control your heart rate to some extent by making yourself excited or relaxed, and you can control your breathing, but no structure located in the cerebral cortex can stop your heart. The same applies to other autonomic functions such as breathing — You can consciously control your breathing, but you can't hold your breath long enough to asphyxiate. In short, the cerebral cortex can influence the autonomic system, but can't do anything as direct and extreme as terminating a vital bodily process.

So, autonomic functions or any functions that are managed outside the cerebral cortex should not be considered subconscious, at least not in the sense used here.

I think it's reasonable to assume that functions such as digestion, perspiration, heart rate, etc. are beyond the scope of a tulpa's direct influence.

Came here to say this. Besides the fact that a tulpa shouldn't be able to control your body any more than your conscious mind can. Unless you're able to stop your heart rate at will, your tulpa can't either.

[ThatOneGuy]

Precisely. Most things achieved using tulpae can also be achieved without them, they just make it a hell of a lot easier.