One Huge Troll™

[Kaga and Company]

Glad you decided to contribute to the discussion anyway.

I've actually been looking around several tulpa communities, and what you're saying actually contributed to my suspicion a lot. Some stories just sounded so... weird. Like even if you assume tulpas exist, the stories were just too unlikely, like a guy having a mean tulpa that attacks his insecurities and forces him to do stuff for it, and if he tries to get rid of it he gets seizures and sensations of bugs eating his skin.

 

That particular story, to me, just doesn't sound like a tulpa. Here, at least, we generally believe that tulpas don't just "turn evil" and they'd really have no reason to want to hurt you, especially if you don't do any harm towards them in the first place. Also you can get rid of a tulpa just by ignoring it, so the fact that this guy got seizures when he tried to get rid of it just isn't something that a tulpa would do. If the story is true, then I don't know what's happening to him, but it sounds like he would have some sort of mental disorder not related to tulpas.

 

There are lots of "spooky stories" about tulpas floating around the internet that I think just about everyone here agrees aren't true. Feel free to ignore them. The stories of an independent thoughtform in one's head that was consciously created thanks to hours upon hours of concentration and mental training? Far more plausible.

 

Sure, that way I'll know it exists if I suddenly get a headm8 after a while, but how will I know it isn't in case that's the truth? I can't tell how long it would take me to create an actual tulpa, 2 months? 8 months? 3 years? How do I know when to stop?

 

Hate to say this, but if you're intent on being this skeptical, then creating a tulpa will probably be pretty difficult for you. I know, the argument of "it doesn't work for you because you don't belieeeeeve hard enough" sounds really lame, but, unfortunately, that's not too far off from how tulpas really work. As the experiences of most members here shows, it's hard for a tulpa to develop if you don't treat them as sentient. And when you doubt your tulpa's sentience/existence, it's a lot harder to make progress. And that's just based off of observation of watching people on the forum who want to create a tulpa and aren't skeptical of other members, but are just skeptical of their own abilities and/or their tulpa's sentience. But if you're completely skeptical of the whole thing and just waiting for something to prove you wrong? I feel like it's very unlikely that one would "appear" to you. Especially since tulpas usually start out by communicating in more subtle forms, like head pressures or raw emotion, which a tulpamancer could easily just dismiss as their own thoughts and not that of their tulpas. If you're expecting that a tulpa will just all-of-a-sudden speak to you, audibly, then that just won't happen. Hallucinations don't happen until your tulpas are very well developed, and I for one have never experienced any auditory or visual hallucinations because of my tulpas -- but I can hear their mindvoices, which I can recognize as different from my own, but, again, that takes practice, as well as willingness.

 

Also, time estimates are really hard to give because they vary for everyone. And since doubts tend to make the whole process harder... yeah. You could spend years "working" on a tulpa and not get anywhere because you're convinced it won't happen, and then claim that the whole thing must be a hoax because it didn't work for you -- but just because it didn't work for you, doesn't mean it hasn't worked for the rest of us.

 

Again, I really hate to say "it doesn't work because you don't believe" because that sound really lame. I know it does. But, if you're that skeptical, then, it'll probably be harder for you to pick up on a tulpa's thoughts in its early stages, when they're rather subtle. An auditory hallucination won't just pop up out of nowhere and surprise you. That's just not how it works.

 

Also, I can't imagine how a tulpa would feel to exist just to be part of someone's experiment. :/ Say you actually do get a legitimate tulpa who surprises you. What then?

[sushi]

One thing that still bothers me though, if narrating + belief is all that it takes to create a tulpa, how come not all (or most) priests (of all religions) have thier own tulpas? They believe in their god, they actively force to him through prayer a lot, shouldn't they have a tulpa of god in their heads?

 

Good question. That's something I haven't really thought about before. Perhaps personification is a part of it as well. Some people de-personify God. Spinoza took that about as far as you can, without becoming an atheist.

 

Expectation might also be a part. The Bible says that God answers all prayers, but I suspect most religious people don't expect a voice from a burning bush. Instead, people look for signs or omens. So even if someone sees God as a "person", they don't expect him to interact with them as a person.

 

Some stories just sounded so... weird. Like even if you assume tulpas exist, the stories were just too unlikely, like a guy having a mean tulpa that attacks his insecurities and forces him to do stuff for it, and if he tries to get rid of it he gets seizures and sensations of bugs eating his skin.

 

I think sometimes people with serious mental issues find tulpa communities and identify with them because they too have voices in their heads. Sometimes embracing these voices can be a good thing, but not always -- we're not mental health professionals, and this is not a valid form of therapy.

[Dee]

Im not trolling.

 

Toby started as an imaginary friend when I was about 7. He just showed up one day and through years of playing with him and talking with him he developed his own personality and began to take on a life of his own.

 

He hasn't changed much other than his maturity level and some of his interests.

 

 

 

Assuming you weren't trying to make a tulpa when you were 7, what was the thought process? Like, were you parroting his responses when you were playing? Imagining him in a wonderland or right in front of you? Just telling him about life?

 

He used to hate kids movies and cartoons but I'm slowly turning him around.

 

Lol. Kinda weird seeing as he started in a 7 year old's subconcious, did you hate kids movies and cartoons as well?

 

He has changed me in that I used to be suicidally depressed. It was bad, but he sat with me and offered me insight and opinions and over time he actually pulled me out of my rut and it's been a very long time since I have had an episode and when I do get slightly depressed he is easy to talk to and to lean on.

And before you say that agreeing with someone is likely to make them happy 90% of the time he doesn't. He has no problem telling me when I'm being an ass or when I'm not looking at things the right way and I apriciate that.

 

That's just amazing. You're saying he offered opinions and perspectives you didn't come up with yourself? Was it just because of a different attitude to life or did he make actual points you couldn't think of even if you tried, like logic-wise?

 

We have ha fights, we have not spoken for a while because of them but that's just what friends do.

 

Wait what? What do you mean you haven't spoken for a while? Isn't that kind of hard when you can hear each other's thoughts? Did he just go away for a while or could you still feel his presence?

 

The main reason I reported this thread was because of your username. If you're willing to continue having open discussions and being as pretty cool as you are being then we has no problem but you should Probobly think about setting up another account with a more appropriate username.

 

I can respect that :)

 

---

There is also no way to tell how long it will take for a tulpa to develope. The best guideline I can give is overnight response isn't likely a tulpa and over a year is too long if you haven't heard anything at that point. Other than that it's up to you and as far as who's trolling as far as I have seen about 90% of the active users are telling the truth.

 

I have my list of people I trust. You hit have to get to know us an figure it out without the judgment of others clouding yours.

---

 

An estimated timeframe is more than enough for me to work with, thanks. I wasn't expecting an overnight response, just, I don't know, something reasonable. Up to a year sounds reasonable enough, but do you mean up to a year for a fully developed tulpa or up to a year for "first contact", as in first word(s)/thought(s) will be heard?

 

I also prefer to belive that everything is possible until proven otherwise. It makes my life more magical but my way of thinking is not for everyone.

 

Sure, that attitude definitely has its pros. I'm just more of a hard-cold-facts-objective-logic kind of guy, I guess.

[Kaga and Company]

That's just amazing. You're saying he offered opinions and perspectives you didn't come up with yourself? Was it just because of a different attitude to life or did he make actual points you couldn't think of even if you tried, like logic-wise?

 

That actually seems to be a really interesting quality of tulpas across the board, as I understand them. They might technically still be a part of your own mind, but, having a different personality and all, they can often offer different perspectives on things than what you could come up with on your own. Sometimes my tulpas even remind me of things that I've forgotten (not big things, though, like what I was doing when I was 4 years old -- just small things, like what I had for lunch a few days ago or something).

[Dee]

 

That particular story, to me, just doesn't sound like a tulpa. Here, at least, we generally believe that tulpas don't just "turn evil" and they'd really have no reason to want to hurt you, especially if you don't do any harm towards them in the first place. Also you can get rid of a tulpa just by ignoring it, so the fact that this guy got seizures when he tried to get rid of it just isn't something that a tulpa would do. If the story is true, then I don't know what's happening to him, but it sounds like he would have some sort of mental disorder not related to tulpas.

 

 

I don't know, mental disorders, while some are common with other physical disorders either in the brain or in any other organ, usually don't trigger things like seizures and the guy was talking about how it was his "tulpa" that was triggering his seizures. Maybe the guy wasn't the usual case. Or maybe he was trolling. Either way, that was just one example, some of the stories I read were definitely trolls.

There are lots of "spooky stories" about tulpas floating around the internet that I think just about everyone here agrees aren't true. Feel free to ignore them. The stories of an independent thoughtform in one's head that was consciously created thanks to hours upon hours of concentration and mental training? Far more plausible.

 

Hate to say this, but if you're intent on being this skeptical, then creating a tulpa will probably be pretty difficult for you. I know, the argument of "it doesn't work for you because you don't belieeeeeve hard enough" sounds really lame, but, unfortunately, that's not too far off from how tulpas really work. As the experiences of most members here shows, it's hard for a tulpa to develop if you don't treat them as sentient. And when you doubt your tulpa's sentience/existence, it's a lot harder to make progress. And that's just based off of observation of watching people on the forum who want to create a tulpa and aren't skeptical of other members, but are just skeptical of their own abilities and/or their tulpa's sentience. But if you're completely skeptical of the whole thing and just waiting for something to prove you wrong? I feel like it's very unlikely that one would "appear" to you. Especially since tulpas usually start out by communicating in more subtle forms, like head pressures or raw emotion, which a tulpamancer could easily just dismiss as their own thoughts and not that of their tulpas.

 

I think you're misunderstanding where I'm coming from, this isn't paranoid suspicion or burning doubts so to speak, but rather curiosity as to how you and the people who come here expecting a friendly head ghost to pop up at one point can be so sure it's going to work. In fact, I believe in the concept of tulpas after giving sushi's sources a good read, and I think you should keep in mind that not taking everything as a fact is not the same as being a heavily skeptic person who believes nothing he hasn't seen with his own eyes.

 

If you're expecting that a tulpa will just all-of-a-sudden speak to you, audibly, then that just won't happen. Hallucinations don't happen until your tulpas are very well developed, and I for one have never experienced any auditory or visual hallucinations because of my tulpas -- but I can hear their mindvoices, which I can recognize as different from my own, but, again, that takes practice, as well as willingness.

 

I'll admit that's a bit more worrying. I don't need to actually hear my tulpa with my ears, but I need some way to distinguish it.. How do you know what thoughts are yours and what are your tulpa's? Suppose I develop a tulpa enough for him to talk to me, how am I suppose to know when he starts talking to me if I can't tell our thoughts apart?

 

Also, time estimates are really hard to give because they vary for everyone. And since doubts tend to make the whole process harder... yeah. You could spend years "working" on a tulpa and not get anywhere because you're convinced it won't happen..

 

But they vary within a certain average timeframe, yes? Sure, there will always be naturals and there will always be people that find it a bit harder, but the question is where the majority stands..

 

..and then claim that the whole thing must be a hoax because it didn't work for you -- but just because it didn't work for you, doesn't mean it hasn't worked for the rest of us.

 

Woah there, don't start putting words in my mouth now. I wasn't questioning the validity of the subject because after 3 years of squinting my eyes real hard half an hour a day I wasn't getting what I wanted, I was simply saying that judging by certain behaviors seen in the community (trolls/roleplayers), lack of concrete evidence and just the idea in general there are some questions that need to be asked and I wanted to hear this forum's perspective on it. Again, sushi's sources brought to mind points I hadn't thought of before and I now believe in tulpas

and intend to start working on 1 tomorrow

, don't dismiss healthy doubt as uncompromising skepticism.

 

Again, I really hate to say "it doesn't work because you don't believe" because that sound really lame. I know it does. But, if you're that skeptical, then, it'll probably be harder for you to pick up on a tulpa's thoughts in its early stages, when they're rather subtle. An auditory hallucination won't just pop up out of nowhere and surprise you. That's just not how it works.

 

(Not gonna repeat the whole "I'm not skeptic I'm just curious" point again)

How subtle exactly are we talking here? If I keep forcing, will it get less subtle in which case I just have to force until it's bold enough for me to understand?

 

Also, I can't imagine how a tulpa would feel to exist just to be part of someone's experiment. :/ Say you actually do get a legitimate tulpa who surprises you. What then?

 

That was never my intention, I find the idea of being able to live with the constant benefit of always having a (very) close friend by my side along with always being able to see several perspectives without as much as a blink of an eye (other than the effort to actually create the tulpa)? That sounds more than appealing enough for me.

[Kaga and Company]

I think you're misunderstanding where I'm coming from, this isn't paranoid suspicion or burning doubts so to speak, but rather curiosity as to how you and the people who come here expecting a friendly head ghost to pop up at one point can be so sure it's going to work. In fact, I believe in the concept of tulpas after giving sushi's sources a good read, and I think you should keep in mind that not taking everything as a fact is not the same as being a heavily skeptic person who believes nothing he hasn't seen with his own eyes.

 

My apologies for misinterpreting you, then.

 

I'll admit that's a bit more worrying. I don't need to actually hear my tulpa with my ears, but I need some way to distinguish it.. How do you know what thoughts are yours and what are your tulpa's? Suppose I develop a tulpa enough for him to talk to me, how am I suppose to know when he starts talking to me if I can't tell our thoughts apart?

 

Probably the biggest thing that sets my tulpas' thoughts apart from my thoughts is that I didn't think them consciously, and therefore didn't expect them to come up. They can say things that I didn't see coming. The way I usually explain it to other people is "another train of thought moving separately from your own". It "sounds" similar to your own mindvoice, but you're not controlling it, so it can say things that you didn't expect, and therefore you can carry on a conversation with your tulpa, etc.

 

Additionally, my tulpas tend to have their own tone of voice when they speak (just like how everyone has a sort of different way that they usually speak) based on their personalities, and they also have their own distinct voices that "sound" different from my own. For example, two of my tulpas are male (while I'm female), so I "hear" a male voice from them. Similarly, Kael has an English accent, even though I'm American. Imagine the voice of a person you know, one that's clearly different from your own voice. If you can think in that voice, and think in your own voice, and tell the difference, then that's sort of what my tulpas "sound" like -- with the added factor that I'm also not controlling my tulpas' thoughts. However, a lot of people say that they don't always hear their tulpas having a distinct voice like I just described, so it might be something that you have to work on to develop a bit more.

 

But they vary within a certain average timeframe, yes? Sure, there will always be naturals and there will always be people that find it a bit harder, but the question is where the majority stands..

 

I'm probably not the best person to answer this question. Whenever I read about how long it takes other people to create tulpas, it always seems so much longer to get so much as a first response than it did with my own, and, honestly, it kind of makes me feel guilty that I was able to pick it up so quickly, and I can't even offer the comforting words of "Oh don't worry, you're not doing anything wrong, I didn't even hear my tulpa until X" because that's not what happened. :/

 

Ignoring my experiences, though, it seems there's just such a vast range that it's hard to really say what the "average" would be. Some people don't hear a first response until several weeks, some even months -- and for some, only few hours. You should probably ask some other people to hear what their experiences were.

 

Woah there, don't start putting words in my mouth now. I wasn't questioning the validity of the subject because after 3 years of squinting my eyes real hard half an hour a day I wasn't getting what I wanted, I was simply saying that judging by certain behaviors seen in the community (trolls/roleplayers), lack of concrete evidence and just the idea in general there are some questions that need to be asked and I wanted to hear this forum's perspective on it. Again, sushi's sources brought to mind points I hadn't thought of before and I now believe in tulpas

and intend to start working on 1 tomorrow

, don't dismiss healthy doubt as uncompromising skepticism.

 

You're right, that was a bit too far. Sorry.

 

(Not gonna repeat the whole "I'm not skeptic I'm just curious" point again)

How subtle exactly are we talking here? If I keep forcing, will it get less subtle in which case I just have to force until it's bold enough for me to understand?

 

Well, yes, forcing will make your tulpa's voice "bolder" and easier to understand as they become more vocal, but I think part of it also has to do to becoming attuned to your tulpa's presence. I see a lot of people who try to create a tulpa and find themselves posting threads asking if a thought that came into their head was their tulpa, or if it was just them. I think that more often than not, those are their tulpa, especially if they didn't consciously think that thought and/or didn't expect it, and people just have a difficult time adjusting to that and recognizing when a certain thought isn't their own -- understandably.

 

So, my advice is, just be open to anything that might be a tulpa. If you "hear" or feel something that didn't seem completely normal, focus on it more, question it. If that is your tulpa, then actively trying to listen to them will help develop them. If that particular stray thought wasn't a tulpa, well, no harm done, really. But sooner or later you're bound to run into thoughts that you aren't sure if they're yours or not. And if you've been working on your tulpa, that's probably who it is.

 

That was never my intention, I find the idea of being able to live with the constant benefit of always having a (very) close friend by my side along with always being able to see several perspectives without as much as a blink of an eye (other than the effort to actually create the tulpa)? That sounds more than appealing enough for me.

 

That's good to hear. I wish you good luck in your forcing, then. ^^

[Linkzelda]

Forgive the long post, but individuals like you are always fun to talk to because even if you intended things to seem bad (in the perspective of others), you’re just as curious as anyone else is, and you deserve any kind information you can get.

Sure, that attitude definitely has its pros. I'm just more of a hard-cold-facts-objective-logic kind of guy, I guess.

 

And that disposition you have has its pros; but something that I’ve seen with people who stick with building rationality into this rather than intuition is that they may be going through gradual stages of milking as much conceptualization as they can, so that when they find their own system of working things out, it makes sense to them; they won’t feel as apprehensive with the whole “courage-is-the-magic-that-turns-dreams-into-reality” they attribute as pure blind faith with inevitable doubting subsequently coming along that route.

 

So while we can’t really provide empirical underpinnings to fit the framework you may be going for; you can take advantage of the anecdotal cases to learn something from what people presumably state they’re experiencing without having to experience it yourself. People who are more results-orientated probably have a difficult time because they’re trying to take care of the introspection, creating subjective purpose and values with their endeavor of making a tulpa before actually doing things to sustain that belief with treating them as sentient.

 

And from what I’ve seen, and this is only based on my observation, when people collect some knowledge of the concept of tulpas, they have to come to their own personal understanding behind the meaning of it all, and why people want to go to such lengths to presumably create an entity they implicitly want to believe as sentient. This is where philosophical inquiry and mode of ethics comes into that equation. But if you’re interested, and choose to go for it, you may find that others just like yourself will find their own meaning because they’ll realize the understanding of a meaning and purpose is more of an emotional one; one that’s wholly subjective, and some seem to be skeptical with going with those emotions and intuition because of many reasons; it could just be a mental barrier they have to climb over.

 

But when those people that are results-orientated realize that when they know what end goal(s) to go for, they don’t bother worrying about the end; they just do whatever it takes to get there, and may realize it’s a progressive thing where they find a set of epiphanies only to repeat things over, albeit more intelligently this time.

 

As for the opinions thrown around with the treating as sentient, tulpas having negative dispositions and what have you, maybe the treating them as sentient self-fulfilling prophecy (IMO; this could be different based on opinions) in the initial stages could be contingent on them finding a positive feedback somehow. Some people end up quitting for a few months, and make claims after coming back that they’re experiencing circumstances where they feel they do have a tulpa in some way. In other words, their skepticism, and taking a hiatus of some sort could’ve created a positive feedback loop that presumably validated to themselves personally that the tulpa they intended to create is sentient in some way.

 

Just because someone is treating them as sentient doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be happy-go-lucky tulpas that don’t want to kill you, or threaten you. But even in worst case scenarios of what was exchanged (e.g. the psychosomatic bug sensations), I’m surprised those individuals making those claims have time to invest in stating that without worrying about having an unsettling feeling of something like that happening again. Maybe those negative experiences are considered as such because of that person’s reactivity level, and it could just be some symbolic representation of their mind trying to negotiate, or communicate to them in some way of certain things they want to hide away.

 

But not everyone is going to have some experience of a presumed sentient entity that may have given them threats and them (the host) say something like, “Hey, what’s the meaning behind your existence that you want to do this to me?” in a casual way. They’ll panic, go batshit crazy even, and prevent any further logic and questioning that could’ve offered them a chance to grow from what seemed to have been their darkest hour with creating a tulpa, or something to that effect.

 

So if you’re more of a logical individual, I can tell you from personal experience, and observing other experiential cases as well; I do know (and I’m inferring here), it becomes unlikely for others to have those cases of tulpas presumably threatening the existence of their host because the host themselves has the chance to educate themselves in some way of not reacting to intrusive thoughts in a pit-pattering rage, and sustaining those thoughts to the point where the treating as sentient philosophy becomes something self-perpetuating. In other words, those sustaining that iron-fist skepticism that somehow in turn creates a positive result (e.g. in them feeling assured that the tulpa in question could presumably be sentient) could be probable.

 

 

TL;DR:

 

So the whole personal accumulation of assurances can gradually subside the skepticism in some way; I could even presume that the skepticism sublimates into how they assess themselves rather than questioning the existence of said tulpa they’re sustaining the belief as being sentient in some way. In other words, even if that tulpa wouldn’t necessarily be validated through epistemological means (e.g. scientific method to do double-blind studies, observations, and experiments to prove something), the host can see some potential that the journey itself helps them tap into their cognition in some way. And even if they don’t feel as assured that a tulpa could be around in their private and subjective experience, the methods they’ve done to sustain that yearning of wanting them to be sentient in some way could offer some experiential learning of how they can assess themselves with people they can actually define real to them in their daily lifestyle.

 

This could be a win-win situation a first glance, and maybe you’ll start feeling the emotional and philosophical weight that comes should you experience someone in your head that makes you feel at ease, and actually can be someone that can sustain their implicit sense of self and independence while also helping you along the way; you end up reciprocating that, and questioning the meaning behind it all is just a meta question where you’ll probably go, “meh, it’s still fun to see what my mind can do.”

 

And that’s okay. We’re not going to demand anything out of you (at least I won’t), but if you want more from us in information (and I’m not saying you’re being aggressive), just know that you’ll be making a compromise in realizing we’re all at a dead-end when it comes to validating this empirically. But we can build from those anecdotes and experiential cases, and maybe use some philosophical inquiry to gain that understanding with the meaning (that ends up being subjective) behind

 

 

One Huge Post™

[Dee]

 

Good question. That's something I haven't really thought about before. Perhaps personification is a part of it as well. Some people de-personify God. Spinoza took that about as far as you can, without becoming an atheist.

 

 

Then again, many people do personify God. For example, if you wanna take the example of Spinoza, when the guy offered the idea of a de-personified God he pretty much got kicked out of his community. Of course his philosophy was later way more accepted, but I still don't remember any stories of Rabbis having deep conversations with God up until that point.

 

Also, I have some religious friends, and they usually say that when they pray they actually direct it at God and go like "God please give me x,y,z and protect me from a,b,c". I don't know if the majority is like this, but you gotta wonder, what happens to those who are?

 

Expectation might also be a part. The Bible says that God answers all prayers, but I suspect most religious people don't expect a voice from a burning bush. Instead, people look for signs or omens. So even if someone sees God as a "person", they don't expect him to interact with them as a person.

 

Hm, yeah, that's a good point. I guess expectation really does play a large role in tulpa creation, speaking of skepticism lol.

 

I think sometimes people with serious mental issues find tulpa communities and identify with them because they too have voices in their heads. Sometimes

embracing these voices can be a good thing, but not always -- we're not mental health professionals, and this is not a valid form of therapy.

 

That does raise a curious question though, what would happen if a person with a mental illness had a tulpa? Anyone ever come across something like this either on this forum or elsewhere?

 

 

Nice work with all the sources by the way, where do you get all of these? lol

 

[Luminesce]

So I read through the thread and was formulating a mass of text to cover the points no one but me seems to cover, and then I saw it end with Linkzelda's textwall and was like, oh. Got beaten to it.

 

But nope, not even what I was gonna say. On that particular topic really quick.. For those rare cases where something isn't just creepypasta or BS, the person has convinced themselves their tulpa(s) wants to and will hurt them, that they are incapable of controlling their mind/their tulpa has greater control, and that they don't want it to happen even though subconsciously they do. I have a hard time sympathizing with people with such weak minds; you WANT to be abused by your tulpa if you are. You can't hide behind your supposed morals saying "harm is bad, I don't want to be hurt" if you're telling your brain to harm you. You're just weak minded. (Which I suppose I should sympathize with, it just hurts my faith in humanity is all)

 

That was actually pretty harsh compared to my usual thoughts on a subject, so I'll let Linkzelda's post cover that topic. I'm more interested in this "Are tulpas even real?" question people seem to think is a legitimate question. The fact that you all find it so legitimate in fact is why I'm interested in it. People say they don't think tulpas are supernatural and agree they're constructs of their mind of some form.. But if that's true, why don't they understand that tulpas are completely, one hundred percent "real"? The definition of real here is a real problem.

 

A tulpa is "real" when you recognize it as a tulpa; sentient and separate from your direct intention and control. Not to say you can't control them (though you may not want to), just that they can act by what's considered their own volition. When you create a tulpa, you're teaching your mind to work in a new way. You're teaching it to, in the context of this "tulpa" you're creating, run all of its thoughts, actions, etc. off of a new set of beliefs, morals and personality. You're creating a new persona "profile" in your head with which to apply thoughts to in your mind. A tulpa is considered sentient when that persona is complete enough that thoughts can be attributed to its set of beliefs, personality etc. rather than yours. (In fact, I experimented with a duplicate of myself as a tulpa, and it was nearly perfectly sentient and vocal from creation - because my mind already knew how to "run" that persona)

 

But it takes a very, very healthy skeptic to figure these things out and then actually accept them and move on. I don't treat my tulpas like they don't really exist as more than neural connections in my brain, because they're not. They're fully fleshed out personas completely capable of functioning as a human being, minus the body part. There is nothing "real" or "fake" about them - they simply exist. Reisen, Tewi and Flandre all have their own personalities, beliefs, morals, and a lot more complicated in-depth purposes and typical functions in my mind. And I love them, as tulpas, because of my inherent belief that love is desirable in all its forms, including loving yourself. Our relationships became much stronger when I realized what my tulpas really were, and what my relationship to them was.

 

So again. They're "real", but I don't believe in the word real in this context. My brain is capable of separating thoughts, wants, even mindsets and ways of thinking based on which persona they're coming from - the default "me" or one of my tulpas. I don't see them as a system of thoughts any more than I see myself that way; they're as real as I am, or any other human I know for that matter.

 

This is all my own personal experience and beliefs, but I'm willing to share it because I apply skepticism and the scientific method whenever working with my own beliefs to make sure they're in line with reality, in said scientific sense. I do this because I feel insecure working any other way - I can't accept things I don't understand, unless I'm doing so to make observations on their effects and validity. Because scientific sense or not, there are no right answers to life, everything's subjective. So I consider looking for the beliefs that best fit you the right answer, and since I do so with logic I believe I can share them with others and get... some kind of agreement. It's okay if you choose to discredit the way I do things in stead of your own. I just had to make this post because skeptic is my trigger word.

 

 

By the way, at first I instantly saw you as a troll, then I saw you asking somewhat legitimate questions and got some faith, and then I saw

Do you have any reading material on the Tibetian horsefuckers part?

And accepted this thread for what it was. Whether you're truly curious (seems like you're trolling via providing legitimate arguments/questions, meaning others will be able to take away value from this whether or not you do) and playing the devil's advocate, or just putting a lot of effort into trolling, I appreciate the skepticism. 'Cus I've wanted to make this post for a long time.

[Dee]

 

Probably the biggest thing that sets my tulpas' thoughts apart from my thoughts is that I didn't think them consciously, and therefore didn't expect them to come up. They can say things that I didn't see coming. The way I usually explain it to other people is "another train of thought moving separately from your own". It "sounds" similar to your own mindvoice, but you're not controlling it, so it can say things that you didn't expect, and therefore you can carry on a conversation with your tulpa, etc.

 

 

That's interesting. So when your tulpas speak, it's like your mindvoice is speaking on its own? That should make it distinguishable enough, I guess.

 

 

Additionally, my tulpas tend to have their own tone of voice when they speak (just like how everyone has a sort of different way that they usually speak) based on their personalities, and they also have their own distinct voices that "sound" different from my own. For example, two of my tulpas are male (while I'm female), so I "hear" a male voice from them. Similarly, Kael has an English accent, even though I'm American. Imagine the voice of a person you know, one that's clearly different from your own voice. If you can think in that voice, and think in your own voice, and tell the difference, then that's sort of what my tulpas "sound" like -- with the added factor that I'm also not controlling my tulpas' thoughts. However, a lot of people say that they don't always hear their tulpas having a distinct voice like I just described, so it might be something that you have to work on to develop a bit more.

 

So I guess I should just give him a voice as different from mine as possible to make it easier? Sounds easy enough.

 

I'm probably not the best person to answer this question. Whenever I read about how long it takes other people to create tulpas, it always seems so much longer to get so much as a first response than it did with my own, and, honestly, it kind of makes me feel guilty that I was able to pick it up so quickly, and I can't even offer the comforting words of "Oh don't worry, you're not doing anything wrong, I didn't even hear my tulpa until X" because that's not what happened. :/

 

Wow that's pretty cool actually. Did you do anything special or are you just a natural? Any tips or something you think you did that made it go faster?

Also, I don't think you have anything to feel guilty about, it's not like it went faster for you because you leeched effort from other people, it was just easier for you thanks to your own personal qualities which didn't negatively affect other people's progress in any way and that's perfectly fine.

 

Ignoring my experiences, though, it seems there's just such a vast range that it's hard to really say what the "average" would be. Some people don't hear a first response until several weeks, some even months -- and for some, only few hours. You should probably ask some other people to hear what their experiences were.

 

Here's your range right there (assuming you based the example on actual cases you came across) - hours, weeks, months. To be honest I thought the average person takes several months to actually get a vocal (as in mindvoiced) tulpa, so if months is the (one of) the worst case scenario(s) I can definitely handle it :)

 

 

Well, yes, forcing will make your tulpa's voice "bolder" and easier to understand as they become more vocal, but I think part of it also has to do to becoming attuned to your tulpa's presence. I see a lot of people who try to create a tulpa and find themselves posting threads asking if a thought that came into their head was their tulpa, or if it was just them. I think that more often than not, those are their tulpa, especially if they didn't consciously think that thought and/or didn't expect it, and people just have a difficult time adjusting to that and recognizing when a certain thought isn't their own -- understandably.

 

So, my advice is, just be open to anything that might be a tulpa. If you "hear" or feel something that didn't seem completely normal, focus on it more, question it. If that is your tulpa, then actively trying to listen to them will help develop them. If that particular stray thought wasn't a tulpa, well, no harm done, really. But sooner or later you're bound to run into thoughts that you aren't sure if they're yours or not. And if you've been working on your tulpa, that's probably who it is.

 

Will do. Thanks. I just hope investigating any stray thought that pops into mind won't hurt my progress or alter my tulpa's personality lol.

 

That's good to hear. I wish you good luck in your forcing, then. ^^

 

Thanks ^_^

---

Forgive the long post, but individuals like you are always fun to talk to because even if you intended things to seem bad (in the perspective of others), you’re just as curious as anyone else is, and you deserve any kind information you can get.

 

And that disposition you have has its pros; but something that I’ve seen with people who stick with building rationality into this rather than intuition is that they may be going through gradual stages of milking as much conceptualization as they can, so that when they find their own system of working things out, it makes sense to them; they won’t feel as apprehensive with the whole “courage-is-the-magic-that-turns-dreams-into-reality” they attribute as pure blind faith with inevitable doubting subsequently coming along that route.

 

So while we can’t really provide empirical underpinnings to fit the framework you may be going for; you can take advantage of the anecdotal cases to learn something from what people presumably state they’re experiencing without having to experience it yourself. People who are more results-orientated probably have a difficult time because they’re trying to take care of the introspection, creating subjective purpose and values with their endeavor of making a tulpa before actually doing things to sustain that belief with treating them as sentient.

 

That's actually what made me not dismiss the idea from the first place, some anecdotes just seemed a bit too off to fit the "everyone's either a troll, a roleplayer or a lunatic here".

 

And from what I’ve seen, and this is only based on my observation, when people collect some knowledge of the concept of tulpas, they have to come to their own personal understanding behind the meaning of it all, and why people want to go to such lengths to presumably create an entity they implicitly want to believe as sentient. This is where philosophical inquiry and mode of ethics comes into that equation. But if you’re interested, and choose to go for it, you may find that others just like yourself will find their own meaning because they’ll realize the understanding of a meaning and purpose is more of an emotional one; one that’s wholly subjective, and some seem to be skeptical with going with those emotions and intuition because of many reasons; it could just be a mental barrier they have to climb over.

 

Yeah, I'm working on that now actually, trying to figure out the whys and whats of me wanting a tulpa and its benefits. I suppose it'll still be a bit harder for me to cling onto something that isn't completely objective, but having a goal of wanting to improve my life more (and others', in my line of work having a little advisor on my shoulder offering different perspectives and opinions before the other side says them is very useful. I'm also hoping it'll rub on me and I'll be able to do that automatically as well lol) is pretty objective.

 

But when those people that are results-orientated realize that when they know what end goal(s) to go for, they don’t bother worrying about the end; they just do whatever it takes to get there, and may realize it’s a progressive thing where they find a set of epiphanies only to repeat things over, albeit more intelligently this time.

 

Mhm, I'm kind of hoping that when I seriously get to working on my tulpa, being driven will take over and I'll focus more on getting what I want than the objectivity and rationale of the whole shebang.

 

As for the opinions thrown around with the treating as sentient, tulpas having negative dispositions and what have you, maybe the treating them as sentient self-fulfilling prophecy (IMO; this could be different based on opinions) in the initial stages could be contingent on them finding a positive feedback somehow. Some people end up quitting for a few months, and make claims after coming back that they’re experiencing circumstances where they feel they do have a tulpa in some way. In other words, their skepticism, and taking a hiatus of some sort could’ve created a positive feedback loop that presumably validated to themselves personally that the tulpa they intended to create is sentient in some way.

 

That's interesting. I actually haven't made up my mind on that one yet, but I'm kinda leaning more to the direction that they are sentient seeing as they're worked through, from and with your conciousness, they originate from it and the core of their personality is directly attached to it (at least judging by my understanding of the creation process) rather than instincts or senses. Of course it's more debatable than that because of cause-effect relations, but that's for another time lol. Makes you wonder though, are the voices mentally ill people hear sentient?

 

Just because someone is treating them as sentient doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be happy-go-lucky tulpas that don’t want to kill you, or threaten you. But even in worst case scenarios of what was exchanged (e.g. the psychosomatic bug sensations), I’m surprised those individuals making those claims have time to invest in stating that without worrying about having an unsettling feeling of something like that happening again. Maybe those negative experiences are considered as such because of that person’s reactivity level, and it could just be some symbolic representation of their mind trying to negotiate, or communicate to them in some way of certain things they want to hide away.

 

But not everyone is going to have some experience of a presumed sentient entity that may have given them threats and them (the host) say something like, “Hey, what’s the meaning behind your existence that you want to do this to me?” in a casual way. They’ll panic, go batshit crazy even, and prevent any further logic and questioning that could’ve offered them a chance to grow from what seemed to have been their darkest hour with creating a tulpa, or something to that effect.

 

This reminds me of a story I read about a guy who created a tulpa that turned out to be gay for him. The guy freaked out and instead of explaining to his tulpa why they can't be fuck buddies he Jackie Chan'd him. There's always the option the guy was trolling to piss off people who oppose Jackie Channing tulpas, but it's still pretty interesting. To be honest, a part of the reason I want a tulpa is to see what my mind can spawn and what dark corner of my head will uncover itself lol.

 

So if you’re more of a logical individual, I can tell you from personal experience, and observing other experiential cases as well; I do know (and I’m inferring here), it becomes unlikely for others to have those cases of tulpas presumably threatening the existence of their host because the host themselves has the chance to educate themselves in some way of not reacting to intrusive thoughts in a pit-pattering rage, and sustaining those thoughts to the point where the treating as sentient philosophy becomes something self-perpetuating. In other words, those sustaining that iron-fist skepticism that somehow in turn creates a positive result (e.g. in them feeling assured that the tulpa in question could presumably be sentient) could be probable.

 

Of course. I'm not afraid

and god knows even if I were my curiosity would have gotten the better of me

of a being that I can always hear its thoughts and plans, especially if I can always Jackie Chan it in case it goes rogue (and only in case it goes rogue, don't worry..)

 

TL;DR:

 

So the whole personal accumulation of assurances can gradually subside the skepticism in some way; I could even presume that the skepticism sublimates into how they assess themselves rather than questioning the existence of said tulpa they’re sustaining the belief as being sentient in some way. In other words, even if that tulpa wouldn’t necessarily be validated through epistemological means (e.g. scientific method to do double-blind studies, observations, and experiments to prove something), the host can see some potential that the journey itself helps them tap into their cognition in some way. And even if they don’t feel as assured that a tulpa could be around in their private and subjective experience, the methods they’ve done to sustain that yearning of wanting them to be sentient in some way could offer some experiential learning of how they can assess themselves with people they can actually define real to them in their daily lifestyle.

 

This could be a win-win situation a first glance, and maybe you’ll start feeling the emotional and philosophical weight that comes should you experience someone in your head that makes you feel at ease, and actually can be someone that can sustain their implicit sense of self and independence while also helping you along the way; you end up reciprocating that, and questioning the meaning behind it all is just a meta question where you’ll probably go, “meh, it’s still fun to see what my mind can do.”

 

And that’s okay. We’re not going to demand anything out of you (at least I won’t), but if you want more from us in information (and I’m not saying you’re being aggressive), just know that you’ll be making a compromise in realizing we’re all at a dead-end when it comes to validating this empirically. But we can build from those anecdotes and experiential cases, and maybe use some philosophical inquiry to gain that understanding with the meaning (that ends up being subjective) behind

 

 

One Huge Post™

 

I can accept that I'll have no way of knowing whether my tulpa is concious or not and I'll probably be battering around with that question a lot, but the benefits of having a tulpa go beyond sentience with the factors which you mentioned like perspective benefits, better cognitive performance (assuming the stories about a tulpa being able to pull out memories you can't are true), deeper understanding of oneself and more. That more than attracts me enough, and to be honest just being able to discuss that very question with my tulpa is incredibly appealing to me :)

 

I guess I could explain the 7 hours thing away by saying it's the common "I-want-to-believe-and-I'll-do-anything-to-make-it-happen-for-as-long-as-I-can", but I doubt that's the case seeing as most people would give up on the facade just by the mere thought of doing something to sustain a lie for 7 hours.

 

WHICH brings me to my question(s): are you the guy who was forcing for 7 hours? If you are, there must have been some serious motivation there if you didn't get bored of 7 hours on Word, was there a special reason if you don't mind me asking? Did you feel any benefits? Looking at the channel I see that's not the first time you're doing it (if it's you), in comparison to other people's progress do you feel it went faster for you thanks to it? If so, how much faster? Like, what's your progress so far and when did you start?