Tulpa/Tulpae

[LucidJuggalo]

Hey guys, I'd like to continue Avalanche's thread about this topic as I only discovered it last night and I find this highly intriguing. Anybody had any personal experiences with this? If so, what was it like? How long did it take you? Positive/negative aspects? There's one thing about this that worries me, and that pertains to the field of dissociation. Does this remove one from real-life, per se? Or does it enhance it? Also, here's a pretty good resource for finding out more about this, for those unacquainted, also contained in Avalanche's original thread: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22094512/tul...ers/Irish.html

[LifeDreamer]

Hello, I read the link that you gave and I have to say that I never would of known that my imaginary friends that seemed to have their own entities where very connected to a Tupla. I remember being three very clearly, yes, it was a very memorable age for me unlike most who don't remember a lot from their early childhood memories. It started when I would talk to this entity that seemed to be interested in my thoughts and actions related to my thoughts and also my creativity. Okay this might seem too crazy and one might ask how I would know and all I can say 'its what i remember'. I remember this entity having many personalities similar to those of Fred from the drop dead Fred movie and he was also very wise and peculiar. He didn't have just one appearance and He didn't look like me (not to confuse with doppelganger twin) but sometimes he was very similar to me and had a sassy mouth. One time in particular I remember wanting something from a shelf but I couldn't reach it so I asked what it was he said it was a flute and that if I wanted it that I better take it now because it might not be there later. Later on when I found my way up it was a flute and then it disappeared. I think my mom took it back. This tulpa/imaginary friend/entity would tell me unbelievable things that I will not discuss on here because they won't be taken literally but they were indeed very literal and came to be. I don't want to be appointed that I'm only crazy and I must have been "seeing things". At one point in time I did have a storage room of information within my mind when I was in early grade school. I kept it open for my imaginary friends hoping they'd understand me for what I know and more. All lot more is to be said about my experience with this but I am still a little uncomfortable with sharing some of it since it is a little beyond and I don't quite understand what I have experience because it seems modern day technology and knowledge is to skeptical of this accounts that I have had.

[Robo]

I tried making one once, but for some reason I kept subconsciously trying to kill it and I got too tiring saving it every day, occasionally multiple times a day, so I just gave up.

[LucidJuggalo]

Hello, I read the link that you gave and I have to say that I never would of known that my imaginary friends that seemed to have their own entities where very connected to a Tupla. I remember being three very clearly, yes, it was a very memorable age for me unlike most who don't remember a lot from their early childhood memories. It started when I would talk to this entity that seemed to be interested in my thoughts and actions related to my thoughts and also my creativity. Okay this might seem too crazy and one might ask how I would know and all I can say 'its what i remember'. I remember this entity having many personalities similar to those of Fred from the drop dead Fred movie and he was also very wise and peculiar. He didn't have just one appearance and He didn't look like me (not to confuse with doppelganger twin) but sometimes he was very similar to me and had a sassy mouth. One time in particular I remember wanting something from a shelf but I couldn't reach it so I asked what it was he said it was a flute and that if I wanted it that I better take it now because it might not be there later. Later on when I found my way up it was a flute and then it disappeared. I think my mom took it back. This tulpa/imaginary friend/entity would tell me unbelievable things that I will not discuss on here because they won't be taken literally but they were indeed very literal and came to be. I don't want to be appointed that I'm only crazy and I must have been "seeing things". At one point in time I did have a storage room of information within my mind when I was in early grade school. I kept it open for my imaginary friends hoping they'd understand me for what I know and more. All lot more is to be said about my experience with this but I am still a little uncomfortable with sharing some of it since it is a little beyond and I don't quite understand what I have experience because it seems modern day technology and knowledge is to skeptical of this accounts that I have had. Highly interesting imo. I don't think you're crazy in the slightest. I tried making one once, but for some reason I kept subconsciously trying to kill it and I got too tiring saving it every day, occasionally multiple times a day, so I just gave up. What do you mean by ''saving it every day''? Or, for that matter, what do you mean by ''I kept subconsciously trying to kill it''? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As an update, I've started my own 'journey' into this whole Tupla thing. I'm a little bit skeptical about it's legitimacy, but I suspect that it's probably due to the fact that, well, how often can you manifest something in reality from merely thinking about it? It kind of feels like I'm wasting my time but since it's going to help with concentration and visualisation (imagination too, I suppose), I can't see the harm in it. For someone like myself who has artistic talent, it could produce positive side-effects, in theory. So far I've spent about an hour and a half trying to suss out personality first and foremost, as recommended in the guides I read. When I first started, I had no idea what to do or how to do it - I'm still kind of lost but I've made some kind of progress - but it's a little bit easier to get that general feel for what my Tulpa is like on the inside. I wasn't sure how to 'contain' these different traits and such so I've decided to go with the whole ''Wonderland'' idea. I spent about 5 minutes (if even that) drawing out a rough idea of a colourful and tranquil fantasy lake thing, with stone steps leading towards it so that I would find it easier to imagine this place. I'm attempting to feed energy into this lake until I feel I'm ready to start creating a physical form. I'm doing this by imagining myself stood up/sat down in front of this lake and speaking to my Tulpa, telling it what it's personality is; e.g: ''You are trustworthy; you don't tell lies. You believe that honesty is very important'' and while I do this these little (ranging to big) kind of crystal balls appear in my hand, filled with energy, and I place them into the lake in some form and then either give it a push or it goes towards the centre by it's own accord - at some point submerging and joining the rest of them at the bottom. I'm not sure whether it's because I finished near 3am or because of what I was doing, but I felt rather exhausted afterwards with a slight headache. Apparently this can happen, so I may be making progress. EDIT: Oh, and to help myself remember all these things, I have a blank journal that I 'christened' last night. While I'm feeding my Tulpa energy, I'm simultaneously writing all these things down.

[Robo]

I think It's because I have an overactive imagination or something when I pay too much attention to my mind, but every time I would sit down to tulpaforce after my tulpa was near completion, My mind would have thought of some bizarre scenario where I had to "save" my tulpa from death or worse. These could take hours to finish completely, I was able to go about my day for the most part while doing them, but I had to focus on both reality and fantasy at the same time and It got very tiring, and doing anything other than walking around town was nigh impossible while attempting these tasks. So I decided to just stop trying.

[LucidJuggalo]

That's... strange. Ever considered making another one?

[Robo]

I agree, it is strange. I've thought about trying, but I don't think it's a good idea for me.

[Supernova]

So basically the idea is to give yourself schizophrenia?

[Robo]

That is one way to put it, or you can call it an imaginary friend.

[LucidJuggalo]

So basically the idea is to give yourself schizophrenia? No, as that condition is a chemical imbalance. No amount of imagining gives somebody a chemical change - you're either born with it, or you do too many drugs.

[Original Poster]

I though I had created a tulpa once but it was just a fart.

[hermine_hesse]

Tulpas are more than just "imaginary friends". The idea is that once you bring the thoughtform to life, it takes on a life of its own, and often other people can see it. Here is an excerpt from Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel.: On the Creation of Tulpas Alexandra David-Neel was a french explorer who traveled in Lhasa and brought the concept of tulpas to the west.

[LucidJuggalo]

The idea is that once you bring the thoughtform to life, it takes on a life of its own, and often other people can see it. In the right context, I can agree with bringing something to life... but ''other people can see it''? Complete crap. It's a hallucination - you can't subject people to your hallucinations.

[Abra]

Tulpas are more than just "imaginary friends". The idea is that once you bring the thoughtform to life, it takes on a life of its own, and often other people can see it. Here is an excerpt from Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel.: On the Creation of Tulpas Alexandra David-Neel was a french explorer who traveled in Lhasa and brought the concept of tulpas to the west. So... Where's Jesus?

[LucidJuggalo]

So... Where's Jesus? Stay on-topic. This is by no means related to religion.

[hermine_hesse]

In the right context, I can agree with bringing something to life... but ''other people can see it''? Complete crap. It's a hallucination - you can't subject people to your hallucinations. Huh? Why did you start a thread on tulpas if you are going to dismiss relevant information on them so easily? What is your purpose in making a tulpa? Tibetan Buddhism and Bon traditions define a tulpa as a being created by a magician, yogi, or collective consciousness of a village that has a separate, conscious existence outside of its maker. If what you are "creating" is just an imaginary friend only you can see, that is not a tulpa. Tulpas are usually only created by very skilled yogis as focus on a yidam or with a specific purpose in mind. I actually doubt that anyone who isn't extremely advanced in meditation could consciously accomplish this feat. I don't have any first hand knowledge of tulpas, so maybe I'm wrong on this part. I do, however, have experience with shared hallucinations, and know this is definitely possible. So... Where's Jesus? I'm not sure if you are implying that Jesus is a tulpa, or that he actually brought the idea of tulpas to the West. Either one sounds interesting to me. Please elaborate. Stay on-topic. This is by no means related to religion. Tulpas are related to religion. It is a Buddhist concept. Furthermore, if a tulpa ghost can be created by a village that a unsuspecting traveler can experience (this is not a fact I am claiming, this is what Buddhist/Bon tradition claims), then it is not hard to extend that idea further and claim all gods, religious figures, paranormal beings are possibly tulpa.

[Abra]

No, no, I mean a lot of people believe Jesus exists. So where's our tupla-Jesus?

[Original Poster]

Jesus, God, Satan and Santa Claus all have Tulpas, or thought-forms. These are not free thinking thought-forms, their existence is the gestalt of the belief people have for them, not some self-aware entity born from the belief.

[Linkzelda]

Reminds me of this: NST - Named Subconscious Technique - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

[shadowofwind]

No, as that condition [schizophrenia] is a chemical imbalance. No amount of imagining gives somebody a chemical change - you're either born with it, or you do too many drugs.. Schizophrenia is a category of symptoms, with the word literally meaning split mind. The definition assumes nothing about the cause, chemical or otherwise. A sufficiently traumatic memory can often push a person into schizophrenia, as a person tries to protect themselves from it. And a sensate experience isn't essentially different from a self-induced lucid experience, from the standpoint of the person who experiences it, depending on how confused they become about what the experience represents. A person can argue that schizophrenia as a result of traumatic stress had an underlying congenital or drug "chemical" cause. However, all sane people have at least mild predispositions towards various mental disfunctions, and these predispositions are largely unknown, so in this sense its an academic distinction. In any case, use of imagination definitely alters connections in a person's brain. And if what is imagined is radical and self-reinforcing, it is not easily undone. I've never done any kind of drugs, but two 'conscious' parts of my mind do work with a high degree of independence. Though I was no doubt predisposed to this, it is also to a significant extent a result of meditative practice. And all people already have parts of their mind that work independently of other parts. This allows people to multi-task, and protects important 'subconscious' processes from being overpowered by other impulses. The lines that divide these aren't entirely set in concrete though, a person has some latitude to alter them and empower the different parts differently, by intentionally becoming aware of the the interrelationships. I'm completely sane in the sense that the two conscious 'sides' are objectively honest and share a lot of information with other, but there is a clear division, and not everything is immediately shared. I suspect that I could push this to a full-blown split personality 'disorder' if I had a reason to. In any case, I think you're right to have a doubt about 'dissociation', and if it were me I wouldn't pursue the subject unless I needed to. If you create a 'tulpa' its like having a mental child, you can't just make it disappear back into its imaginative womb, or lock it away in a subconscious closet someplace, the moment you tire of it. In the right context, I can agree with bringing something to life... but ''other people can see it''? Complete crap. It's a hallucination - you can't subject people to your hallucinations. You were asking about tulpas. Yes you can subject other people to your hallucinations if you make it their hallucination also. This is easier with some degree of willingness on their part, and it would be wrong otherwise, but it doesn't require their understanding of what's going on. We've talked about this a lot on this site in the context of shared dreaming, but I've seen this in waking life also. If you think that this is delusional, based on your beliefs and experience, then maybe this is more evidence that you don't want to try to find out more about tulpas. Clearly there's a correlation between delusion and experience with tulpas, and who knows which is causal.

[shadowofwind]

Jesus, God, Satan and Santa Claus all have Tulpas, or thought-forms. These are not free thinking thought-forms, their existence is the gestalt of the belief people have for them, not some self-aware entity born from the belief. Are there any free thinking thought-forms then? If so, how do they come into being? Tentatively I don't believe that thought-forms exist independent of their physical hosts. However, in my experience they can exist independently of particular hosts, sort of like how software doesn't exist without computer hardware, but doesn't depend on any particular computer. And in my experience some thought-forms are highly intelligent, and probably self aware. I think that Jesus has in recent times existed as self aware spirit, even though I don't believe the redemption-through-the-son-of-God mythology, and I don't know how closely connected that spirit is with the historical cult leader. I don't know about Satan or other gods. And I could only speculate on how long a conscious thought form might persist, to what extent it just appears where conditions are right then disappears again, just like everything else does, apparently. I don't see how a person could possibly know that a given god does not have self-aware entities that are born from it, or even many of them.

[Original Poster]

Well now we're getting into the concept of self-awareness. Everything is a system of information, consciousness or self-awareness is the result of mental activity. Are tulpae less self-aware than a human being? Probably not. That doesn't make them anything more than an accumulation of what people think about them.

[shadowofwind]

I'm more than an accumulation of what people think about me. I also have some limited capacity to choose who I am, apparently. It seems to me that a tulpa ought to have even more freedom in that sense, because its not as locked into a single person's physiology. I've read that other animals aren't self aware. I speculate that this perception is mostly a rationalization by meat eaters, certainly I can't square it with what I know about animals, granted that they're not self aware in entirely the same way that a human is. I've read in the same sources that gods are nothing more than an accumulation of what people think about them. I speculate that this perception is similarly motivated, that people want to be at the top of the volitional food chain. Again it doesn't seem to fit with my experience though. It seems plausible or even likely to me that some entities have no thoughts about themselves besides the thoughts that people have about them. However, the entities themselves are significantly responsible for those thoughts, they provide the intuitions and create the experiences that trigger those thoughts. In a sense our thoughts are their thoughts also, but their intelligence is not subsidiary to ours.

[Original Poster]

Unfortunately you're making too many assumptions based on what I said and I'm not coming across as I intend to. I do not mean to place human beings at the top of some hierarchy. I mean to remind you that self-awareness is a completely unjustified concept. You are more than what people think of you, yes, but is your self-awareness more than a defense mechanism against what others think of you? Who is the real you? Is it anything more than an animal? There are two sides of man, the belief and the truth. The belief are the ideas you have, and the truth are what stands apart from them. Ethos is the accumulation of everything you believe to be true. But it's not really true, it's just what you think is true. This accumulation is often confused with the self. But it is not self. It is a translation, reflection or conceptualization. Animals are free from belief, they live in truth. But that doesn't mean beliefs are dead. It simply means they are kept alive purely through the power they sap from us when we believe they are true. You are not an accumulation of what people think of you, but the concept you have of you is simply a reflection which changes according to each person's beliefs about you, including your own. None of them are true, including your own. Behind that is the animal before it bit from the fruit of the tree of knowledge. You do stand apart from it, but your "self-awareness" or ego does not stand apart from it. It was fabricated. For the most part, we give life to parasites, such as the belief that "I'm not good enough." This belief, by itself, is a living organism in the realm of the immortals, which is to say in the abstract world of ideas. And it seeps us of our power because we believe it's true. Tulpae work the same way, but we can regain power over our tulpa, along with every other concept we breathe life into, by reminding ourselves that it's our choice to believe in everything we believe in. Self-awareness is another belief we create and it separates us from our environment and entangles itself in many other beliefs once we decide to compare and contrast ourselves with everything that is not us. There is no stagnant concept that is you, but believing there is creates in itself something that robs you of your power. It leads to venomous tulpae such as the "I'm not good enough" tulpa. Break all beliefs that do not serve you.

[LifeDreamer]

I've been thinking about how much upkeep a tulpa actually needs once it has been declared by oneself that it has it's own thought-formation existence. When I think about this manifestation of mental energy, tulpa, I thought about how it would be possibly to help the tulpa to tune in into your chakra and with that somehow helping it become more aware about energy and vibrational effects of the body and mind so that it can manifest itself into greater ability. I think it would be interesting if one could become more in-tune with themselves by manipulating or helping a tulpa understand oneself and possibly extend this into greater ability of an ultimate awareness of not just oneself but of everything (within our own capacity of course).