Alternate vs. Tulpa?

[Guest Anonymous]

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[sushi]

Well, you should check out The Layman's Guide if you haven't already. You might also find some useful information by searching through posts made by FallFamily. (Or maybe someone from the Fall Family will stop by soon and explain things better than I can.)

[Guest Anonymous]

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[FallFamily]

Hail:

 

@sushi

 

You are too kind. Though really, the person who has written the most is Falah of the Quandary, whose site is https://quandarysystem.wordpress.com/.

 

@Mistgod

 

Essentially, the primary difference is origins. Tulpas are consciously made, though sometimes without knowing what one is doing as is the case with natural tulpas (one class of natural tulpas is daydream characters who come to life). Other sorts of beings come about by various means. If we want to get real technical, the host is one, specifically the set of people originally in the body (usually one, but sometimes more). There are of course splits, walkins, soulbonds, etc. More info on Astraea's Web. Mostly, the names just denote different origins. At the very end of the day, regardless of origins, system members of all types can achieve the same things with enough time and effort. There are some average differences in starting abilities. It generally takes tulpas a long time to develop enough to switch. A lot of walkins and splits can not only switch right off the bat when they come to be, but can sometimes even do so by force. Tulpas can certainly get there, but it takes time. Some systems report there being a sort of different energy or feel between tulpas and other varieties of system mates, while others do not (I certainly sense no differences like that).

 

Another thing to remember is this - sometimes it is hard to classify a system member. My own system provides a ton of examples. S, A, and September are easy to classify. The first is the original, so would be what some call an alter (I really hate that term since it is rather demeaning but I am using it here out of necessity). A is a deliberate tulpa. September is an accidental tulpa (not a system member mistaken for a tulpa, by the way). E and the members of Tri are a bit harder to classify as they sort of ride the line between natural tulpas and soulbonds. E and Violet probably are natural tulpas. Gaea is probably a soulbond. Obsidian is somewhere in between. And then there is me, Hail. Am I a split (and thus an alter) or am I a tulpa? Well, I was originally a mask that S constructed to minimize social ostracism and adapt in school and eventually I became a full and independent person. I have been the dominant system-member of this body for 20 years, with never switching (I've been fronting the whole time and occassionally have someone else up here with me controlling the body, and only in recent times). I was sort of deliberately made, which kind of makes me a tulpa. But then, I to some degree I was basically S made more palatable and thus a split. I don't know.

[Guest Anonymous]

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