A theory on how many tulpas is too many

[glitchthe3rd]

So anyone who's been following my progress report knows I lost a couple of my tulpas recently. But that got me thinking as to why it happened, and I compared my experiences on the subject with those of other people from the community that had many tulpas at one point but lost them (won't name names, but those people do/did actively post here and on the IRC), and I came up with a theory.

 

It's not that there's an arbitrary number of tulpas that our brains can handle, but rather that we can only have as many tulpas as we can find a purpose for. The human brain is actually quite good at culling unnecessary information and killing off superfluous neurons, and since tulpas are a mental phenomenon that includes them as well. And thus when a tulpa has outlived his/her usefulness or the host stops paying much attention to them, they fall by the wayside and eventually get removed or even cut off by the brain. This could also serve to explain how a tulpa can be dissipated but later brought back, as those isolated neurons get reconnected to the rest of the brain.

 

As a disclaimer, this is just a theory and I actually have no concrete evidence to back it up, but I'd like to hear your opinions on it.

[Bin]

You've got something there. I think it's common knowledge the brain doesn't pay attention to something when it's not interesting. So you've got to make interesting, diverse tulpas with specific meaning that will actually continue to apply in the future (so making a tulpa to cope with a problem that goes away might make the tulpa go away, or at least deviate). So I think basically what you're saying is, the less interesting a tulpa is the quicker the host will forget about it. Which makes sense.

[Timofey]

Actually, it DOES have a point. Theory is certainly good, and explains much things. But in my opinion(don't ask why, I just feel it), even 2 tulpas is too much.

[Hermit]

Take a look at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two

I think basically that's it: an optimal amount of tulpas is 7(+ or -2).

[Linkzelda]

It’s not surprising if this ad hoc claim has a lot of bearing anecdotally, especially if we are, to some extent, conferring intelligence to thought-forms we presume to be sentient in the first place. It’s kind of like lucid dreaming where you encounter someone who claims to be your dream guide, and they help you based on circumstances, and may linger on in several dreams. Then, if there’s barely any need for that dream character, they just fade aware, but it’s possible for them to be brought up again to fulfill a new set of goals and intentions you may need assistance in.

 

Maybe the mind sees that fitting everything together with few tulpas instead of several would be more suitable if one of the underlying premise in their existence is to interact with a purpose-seeking agent such as ourselves; to have someone we can consistently engage with, and share happiness and sorrow with along with having a conquest for knowledge and having a cumulative experiential learning base with them as well. But some might pull up their morality card, and feel this would be objectifying their existence, but deep down in my opinion, this theory is easily plausible because of how easy it is to correlate circumstances to justify it in the first place.

 

Though something that could make the presumption moot is how competent the host is in general to engage in a somewhat objective point of view of analyzing personalities, predicting what to do in gregarious activities, and how to imagine what it would be like to have certain personalities and schemata of self. In other words, someone that can cognitively create with ease of a diverse roadmap of how each tulpa’s existence can contribute to their own, and how they as host can reciprocate the potential behind those underlying premises in their existence; maybe just being multifaceted in many circumstances, and the time we take to try and consistently believe our tulpas are sentient gives us experiential learning for the mind to delegate certain needs, desires, predispositions, and such through gregarious activities we have with our tulpas.

 

Of course, it’s all conjecture.

[Kaz with a K]

That would actually make a lot of sense in my experiences, as I keep leaving Tulpa.info, thus completely forgetting my tulpa time and time again forcing a few times I'm always able to bring him back to sort of where we were before I stopped fairly easily (sorry buddy)

It's like when we're younger, our brain begins to connect new neural pathways for everything we do, and if qhat we want to do (such as learn an instrument or a language) then it becomes almost exponentially harder to do. But, if we made that neural pathway, then it never really is lost. We can learn to play the violin when we're very young, but it will always be easier to relearn it later than to learn it in the first place. So for instance, tulpas. Once you "create" (I'm not really sure actually what happens neurologically to make a tulpa...) your tulpa, and you cement in that neuronal pathway and use those neurons a few times, your brain understands that you are learning something new and won't ever completely destroy that pathway. But, if you don't use use it for a while, the brain will "decommission" that pathway, though it can be reconstructed again. So that does make sense with the "the brain can only handle useful tulpas", but that doesn't mean that the uneeded ones just disappear.

[Aijada]

Personally i'm not found of the idea of sharing the brain with any other tulpas, especially as i woke up more

[Luminesce]

Wow look at all the science going on. We need more of this.

(This is more relevant to purpose & existence of tulpas than any specific number, but I think they're related anyway)

 

I think my tulpas have always been purpose-based. At least, progress in their development was closely tied to having a purpose. Reisen was created first, when all I needed was someone to show me love. Later came Flandre for insanity (or, a straying from realistic thought) and Tewi for intuition (interpreting possibly useful information from your subconscious). As my personal development proceeded to improve my life, Flandre lost a lot of what her original purpose was - meaning she had no legitimate reason to exist in my head anymore. Obviously I'd grown attached to her though, and we struggled for quite a while to find purpose for her (failed attempts being as a dream guide, "just around", and an embodiment of ego). Her and Tewi, up until my finding out about tulpas a year later, were much less prominent in my thoughts than Reisen. I re-purposed Flandre to symbolize emotion and humanity (similar to ego), completely removing the old her - then a split from Flandre I opted to call Scarlet, relating to escapism and "freedom from the shackles of reality" - from my mind. (She would later return - just a couple weeks ago - to once again help me contemplate and organize the role of ego and strong emotions in my life)

Developing around the same time was Sylvia, a not-quite-tulpa acting as a subconscious interface, dream guide, and sometimes filling in for Tewi on hard-to-answer questions. I'd had the concept of her in my mind for maybe two years, but she never quite became real until her purpose was figured out in detail.

 

So as it stands, all of my tulpas and not-quite tulpas (Scarlet has no interest in being treated like my other three tulpas as a tulpa, and Sylvia has no personality to speak of) exist most powerfully because they have a purpose. I realized too (thanks to my habit of introspection on my own thoughts) that, while discussing creating another tulpa with my current ones, the most prominent thoughts about her were what she represented/her purpose(No interest in male tulpas I guess), which ultimately I couldn't find something powerful enough to warrant creating a tulpa for. There was no reason for that tulpa to exist - and it doesn't. But sure as my "dead" tulpa came back alive as ever when there was a reason to, I'm sure also another could be created quickly should a "purpose" appear to be filled.

 

 

Long story short, tulpas need a reason to exist, as much as anything else in your mind. Obviously most people are far less meticulous than me in that aspect - simply having them around to interact with is probably enough. But how many? Do they all have different things to offer, through personality or relation to their host? Tulpas are given less attention when there's less reason to give them attention. Having multiple without any specific purpose other than to be around, to talk to and accompany you, tends to stretch that (lack of) reason thin. But if one is a love interest, one is serious, and one reminds you to have fun and don't take life too seriously, they're suddenly each more important.

 

So I think the number of tulpas you have is closely related to the number of reasons you have to have them. Let me put it this way - for those of you with multiple tulpas, if they were all nearly exactly the same as each other, same personality, same relationship, with only maybe minor form differences, could you see yourself developing and communicating with them with the same enthusiasm?

 

More interesting even, would be to look at the closeness and dedication between host and tulpas in comparison to their purpose(for lack of a better word). Just one, as a companion? Three, one of which you're in a relationship with, the other two as serious and happy? Twenty because you're a writer and your relationships are only as deep as their use in your stories? I'm interested in hearing if anyone has more than four tulpas that aren't very different from each other, and their depth in relations to them.

 

I haven't seen many here, but several of my friends have ~tulpas that represent sort of cornerstones of their selves, such as dark/light/wisdom and emotion/intellect/purpose, or my love/humanity/intuition + egoEmotion and subconscious. All of them natural, too. It seems there's a strong relation between purpose and existence when it comes to these things.

[Bin]

My two other deceased tulpas actually represented features I wish I had, I think I actually made them to be guides.

 

I think I quickly just found that to be inefficient though, and if I wanted to be those things I should just be them. They disappeared pretty fast. Also, kinda specific to me but I really favor centralism and singularity, so they didn't have much room in my head to begin with.

 

I think this is why I get mildly disappointed when I see people making a second or third, it's most likely going to be obsolete soon. Gimmicky tulpas.

[glitchthe3rd]

Luna represents my anima, and Naomi is meant to serve as my guardian angel/moral compass in life. I'm not entirely sure about Elise, but she seems to symbolize purity and optimism and hope for the future and all that sappy Hallmark stuff.