The Difference Between Tulpas and Soulbonds?

[Guest Reilyn-Alley]

To me, all the fancy different names around here just talk about origin. Alter, fictive, daemon, soulbond.. Intentional, traumatic, walk-in, all just talking about how a tulpa came to exist. Tulpa being a sentient, independent person, maybe even indistinguishable from the "host" or "original". I mean, I guess someone could be proud that they are a soulbond or something, if that's their thing, but all that really matters is we are all people. A more interesting question might be, by our definitions of tulpas, are the original personalities that form in bodies tulpas too? At least some on here already say they are.. It's interesting, I think.

[DreamDoll]

We sometimes say I am a "dreamform" because I exist in both day dreams and dreams while asleep. I guess that is descriptive of origin as well.

 

Mistgod would say for himself to be a tulpa, I would have to be the one with the driver's license, the right to vote, the marriage certificate, the wife, the step children, the grandchildren, the high school diploma, the college degrees, the vocational computer degree, the teaching credentials, the jobs and the paychecks, the bills to be paid, the family name, the gray hair, the aging body, and the one with the pictures in all the photo albums.

 

There is no forever young, five foot four, pigtails blonde with dark blue eyes in any of that. So it does seem to be that I am the thoughtform and he is the real person.

 

So, Mistgod is certainly not a tulpa. He would never identify as one himself and thinks that concept is utter rubbish. I am the one who is imaginary and a construct of his mind. I did not construct him, he constructed me. Well, technically I just sorta showed up one day but sorta mostly kinda he day dreamed me into existence.

 

Mistgod isn't a pony either (I have an alternate pony form). He's a human being in the real world. He was given his name by his family at BIRTH.

 

:-)

[Guest Reilyn-Alley]

There wasn't much of a person in the body at birth. Just instincts and reactions. Eventually all the sensory inputs and brain pathways developed and it grew a person in it. Someone who was raised by animals in the wild (there have been some, historically) isn't much of a "person" either. Just a mass of survival mechanisms. Our brains are very good at adapting to survive. They could care less if we can hold down a job and make our way through college, they just want us to be able to survive and reproduce.

 

As for having all that stuff.. Some of it is great, but.. It's just stuff. When 100 years have gone by will any of it remain? Will any of it matter? How ironic would it be if in 100 years people were still talking about Melian of the 20th-21st century but nobody at all knows who Mistgod was. Who truly existed then? It's true a body has the potential for a genetic legacy but not everyone chooses to or can have kids. Leaving some kind of meme (the actual word, not silly pictures) is all they have, and nothing is stopping a tulpa from leaving that behind as proof of their existence.

 

If someone was severely sheltered, take an extreme example: taken from their mother at birth in a third world nation and brought into a life of trafficking and servitude, etc etc, they would have none of those things. They may even be able to claim that if they died or vanished, nobody really would ever even know and there would be no traces of them. Some would crudely refer to them as sub-human or not people at all. Their bodies may take food and drink to maintain but otherwise, they have been completely denied person hood, let alone any kind of rights.

 

That was a bit of a tangent but anyway.. Most of us recognize here that alters aren't "created" in the "creating a tulpa" sense. They can still be treated as their own people and for all intents and purposes, treated as tulpas too. Walk-ins and soulbonds and imaginary friends that have been around since early childhood may or may not have any sense that they have been "created". Some of us more scientifically-minded types like to think (with our pseudo-science, as you put it) that all that makes a "person" is just a collection of brain cells, forged neuro pathways and chemicals. I think this is supporting by the fact that if any of those three things are messed with seriously enough, the "person" may change, sometimes quite drastically, perhaps even seeming to be someone completely different or die altogether. Since the tools are already there in the brain to disassociate parts of it and create alters, I don't see why that can't be repurposed intentionally. It's just brain cells, neuro pathways, and chemicals. That's all any of us are (soul/religious beliefs aside). What does it matter if the materials available end up making one or two or ten people in there?

 

Probatio diabolica.

 

EDIT: What do ponies have to do with anything? And "real" world? Are you aware of how small a spectrum we are actually able to detect using our limited senses? When you go down far enough and everything is just atoms and vibrations, and just trying to measure things requires so much energy that it alters it's outcome, what is "real" anyway?

[DreamDoll]

"What is "real" anyway?"

 

Death

[Lucilyn]

death of someone else maybe, you will never experience your own death/being dead to know it's "real"

... as far as we can tell, meta stuff aside

 

what's real in your head is what you think is real, to you at least, we've said it a thousand times, there's no real or fake in tulpamancy|your mind, what happens happens, it's what you believe about what happens that makes the difference

[DreamDoll]

Mistgod and I are pretty convinced that our own death will be very real and quite inevitable. It also can happen just about any moment now.

 

And we have told you a thousand times we don't see it your way. You can say it a thousand and one times and we won't accept that. Reality isn't just what is in your head. That's why we die. Because the world is a real place and we die. You can't day dream or imagine your way past that. So something is pretty friggin real isn't it? Death is real. If death is real, then something is certainly real and it isn't all just all dreamland.

 

Self delusion happens too.

[Lucilyn]

the "you'll never experience your own death/being dead" thing is a sorta philosophical joke, I'm not saying you don't die lol

 

the other part though, I said "what's real in your head", as in I'm only talking about internal stuff, there is no "real" or "fake" in your head only what happens, and how you interpret what happens in your head etc.

 

I still think outer reality is real, 'cus the philosophy about external stuff being maybe not real is kinda redundant. btw this is really off topic no need to argue

[DreamDoll]

You're right, this is off topic. I moved my response here https://community.tulpa.info/thread-confessions-of-a-poorly-trained-tulpa?pid=247911#pid247911

[Myshkin]

To me, all the fancy different names around here just talk about origin. Alter, fictive, daemon, soulbond.. Intentional, traumatic, walk-in, all just talking about how a tulpa came to exist. Tulpa being a sentient, independent person, maybe even indistinguishable from the "host" or "original". I mean, I guess someone could be proud that they are a soulbond or something, if that's their thing, but all that really matters is we are all people. A more interesting question might be, by our definitions of tulpas, are the original personalities that form in bodies tulpas too? At least some on here already say they are.. It's interesting, I think.

I see this idea floated around a lot, that all tulpa-like things are actually tulpas but with some additional qualities. I believe this idea comes from the fact that most tulpamancers are only really familiar with the language of tulpamancy and so end up trying to apply it to all phenomena that sound even vaguely tulpa-like, and so we end up with people saying things like "God is a tulpa". The problem with this approach is that the word "tulpa" carries certain connotations that don't apply to daemons, soulbonds, etc., which means it can't be used as a general lalbel for all these things. A more appropriate label for all the categories you mentioned, except maybe alters, would be "sentient thoughtform".

[Mistgod]

If it were up to me, I would just leave it as "thoughtform" for all of it. Take off the descriptor "sentient" or I will be having convulsions of cringe and frustration. The word "sentient" is totally unnecessary and problematic.