Tulpas?

[CNGB]

Hi guys! I apologize in advance because this probably isn't the best place to ask this question, but I'm not really sure where to put it. I was wondering what exactly a tulpa is. I've seen it mentioned once or twice on here and looked it up, but I'm still not totally sure I understand. Is a tulpa "just another dream character," or is it something that we consciously/unconsciously create? A dream guide of sorts?

[JoannaB]

Well, someone correct me if I am wrong, but here is my understanding of a tulpa: it is the belief that in a dream we can create a separate entity/personality other than ourselves, capable of acting of its own will (?). Now personally, I have been kind of wondering whether we are tulpas. You see I believe that we were created by God. And the belief that life is all a dream of sort makes some sense to me on a certain level; there are weird things in life that would make more sense to me if life were all a dream. Now I am not sure whether I really believe it is, and actually I pretty much believe that we have no way of knowing that it is not a dream but am open on the possibility that it is a dream. Well, if life were a dream, that would make us tulpas. And if as I believe we were created in God's image, then we may be able to create entities in our dreams. Now personally, I would as a result never try to do that because that possibility scares me - too much responsibility if it were true, in my opinion. When I first came to DV, I saw a thread that mentioned that if one neglects one's tulpa and stops dreaming of him or her, that is like murder. And I remember thinking that this is ridiculous, and that here is someone taking their imaginary friend way too seriously. Well, I am an open minded person though, and my thinking has changed quita a lot since I came here in February of this year. And my current thinking is, what if those who believe we can create tulpas in dreams are right? And that idea fills me with a kind of awe that deeply disturbs me on some level. Does that make sense? Did I misrepresent tulpas? I hope I didn't offend anyone?

[dutchraptor]

*Moved to Beyond Dreaming*

[Kraom]

Well a tulpa isn't only confined to dreaming, it's essentially sectioning off a portion of your consciousnesses in waking life, and that section takes on it's own persona based on what is called tulpa forming or forcing where you give it physical appearance, personality, etc.

[JoannaB]

I just realized that maybe I should not have responded given that my initial response may tell you more about me than about tulpas (possibly making you wonder which is weirder, probably me). what I should have done is post this link instead http://www.dreamviews.com/tulpa-land...hat-tulpa.html

[shadowofwind]

And if as I believe we were created in God's image, then we may be able to create entities in our dreams. Now personally, I would as a result never try to do that because that possibility scares me - too much responsibility if it were true, in my opinion. We create children by rubbing our bodies together for a few minutes. That's at least as much responsibility as a tulpa. You could argue that we don't really create the children, that God and nature does most of the work, but then that's true for a tulpa too. I don't think there's anything particularly special about dreaming something as opposed to thinking about it while awake. In either case, living is a creative process.

[CNGB]

Thank you guys for answering here! I also read from the link that you gave me, Joanna, and it was pretty interesting. As for your first post, I don't think that you're crazy. I like it when people talk about themselves as you did since it enriches the community . . . or something like that. Most likely, out of the two of us, I'm the weird one. I think the question "Are we tulpas?" is pretty cool. Somewhat similarly I sometimes wonder if mirrors (or anything that will show us our reflection) are gateways to alternate realities. There are probably more people who have thought about this and even some who believe it, but at this point I'm mostly just rambling so don't mind me. XD I'm like you, though. Let's say that tulpas really are real--I wouldn't want to create one. I'd feel like a god and I don't want to be a god, don't want to have that level of responsibility, and don't want to have an "imaginary" friend. If the concept is real then I suppose it's pretty cool that there are people who can go through with that, but I definitely can't. Anyway, again, thanks for posting to all!

[CNGB]

shadowofwind-Sorry, I didn't see your message before I started typing my response. You do have a point. I suppose the thing that unnerves us (or rather, me) is that it isn't common practice. Unknown, unseen, no scientific proof, unheard of, etc., etc., etc. Regardless you are right, though I still don't want to be responsible for the death of an entity if it's as real as people say.

[JoannaB]

Yes, the idea that it is no more responsibility than creating a child had actually occurred to me. Creating a child is of course a huge responsibility. Bringing one up is however usually a shared responsibility: with one's spouse, grandparents of the child if they are around, school, and friends. Whereas tulpas forming would be much more individual and no way to share the responsibility. As a parent others understand and give one some slack sometimes because one is a parent, whereas that is not true with a tulpa. Furthermore, there are times I need to be alone, and I can do that despite having kids, whereas a tulpa would always be there with one, I think. But yes, as CNGB pointed out, a lot of it may be just fear of the unknown, and concern over something I do not understand well enough. However, while I am willing to explore a lot of subjects, I am not willing to find out more about tulpas at this time, well not much more - I am kind of curious about the subject, and read the linked article right before posting the link here, but I am not willing to explore the subject too deeply because it makes me uneasy at this time anyway.

[realdealmagic]

*points to the user forum for tulpas on DreamViews*

[shadowofwind]

Regarding the responsibility of having a tulpa....I think its enough of a responsibility that a person shouldn't try to create one for frivolous reasons. But if one comes about anyway, due to circumstances, I don't think its necessarily that big of a burden. I'm not completely sure of the origin of my 'familiar spirit', if its like a tulpa. I've tended to make a practice of recognizing qualities in other people, then using that recognition to develop those qualities myself. This is sort of like what a person does with a guru, where you experience something of the guru's mental state, then replicate something like it yourself. We can do this sort of thing with practically anyone though. Anyway, I did this in the late 90's with some acquaintances who had spiritual growth interests similar to mine, and had developed some insights and awareness that seemed useful. It changed me, and a couple of times I felt pregnant, almost like I was incubating something in me. One of the times I even felt like I had a miscarriage, and mourned even though I know that sounds crazy. A few years later, I started getting an increasing number of interesting dreams, like parables designed to instruct me. If these were do to a 'Tupla', it was something created in part by my curiousity, but also by something beyond me that knows some stuff that I didn't know. So maybe I was one parent, so to speak. On one occasion when I asked the spirit about its identity, it said 'you created me for passing information between worlds', or something to that effect. This was an audial hallucination when I was awake, which is something it only did a few times, usually it would speak as more of an impression that allows me to speak for it, or in a dream. It sounded a little bit pissy, as if I hadn't been making good use of its offering, or maybe there was something disrespectful or delusional about the assumptions I have about the significance of my own thoughts. About two years ago, the spirit started demonstrating an increasing independence. It began showing up in the dreams and even the waking life experiences of other people, frightening my dad on one occasion for instance. And at the same time it began saying less in less in my dreams. I'd have to read dream e-mails from my sister or use other people's dreams posted online for lessons, but these were always coordinated remarkably well with what I was asking about. Now it doesn't have much overt presence in my life at all. My point here is that a tulpa, if what I'm talking about is sufficiently the same as what other people are calling a tulpa, isn't necessarily a lifelong experience. Like other children, it grows up. And even when its young, its not going to die if you don't do enough with it for a couple of days, even though just like a real child you can hurt it if you neglect it that. I think actually this is part of where my familiar spirit came from. Another man who I talked to had spent a lot of time and effort developing himself meditatively, then he largely turned away from it and tried to shut it down, because he got in over his head in some ways. I think that when he talked to me, trying to share something of what he'd learned, some of that spirit he had developed transferred itself to me, because I was better equipped and more willing to handle it in some regards. So he would have been a parent of sorts also, if a deadbeat-dad kind of parent, due to other burdens he carried. So after reading this thread, I asked my 'familiar spirit' yesterday if it was still out there somewhere. In response I got a dream that started off somewhat like a waking life experience, since I had recently claimed in a post not to dream directly of waking life things. Then later in the dream there was a scene like some sort of shamanic initiation, where I was supposed to join with be changed somehow by my familiar spirit. It said something to me, which I don't remember, but one implication seemed to be that the 'initiation' wasn't right, that it was too soon, or inappropriate for some other reason. So the spirit left, and as it was leaving I said "I love you", and it responded with something like that also. Then the dream continued with a couple of other strange riddles, which maybe I'll continue with in a new thread, rather than hijacking this one. In summary, yes I agree that its best for most people not to intentionally create tulpas, but if its in your destiny, it doesn't have to be that big of a deal, and they can some independence from your own mind, so its not like they're necessarily dependent on you forever.

[shadowofwind]

I continued my dream description in a new thread in the dream-interpretation forum

[PeterF]

I got a tulpa. At first it was weird getting used to. Took up a shit load of my energy "making" her. now we just go on adventures in my dreams & i communicate with her often. I was kinda nervous of making one at first because of all the stories of tulpas gone wrong & not to mention those few creepy pastas. Now today i don't even regret. nothing like what others say.

[Linkzelda]

The concept of tulpa itself, especially when it's been westernized and has a myriad turn of events, usually when people don't really feel too bad with dissipating at the early stages is because the existential questions and concepts hasn't developed yet compared to it coming up with having a tulpa(e) for a longer period of time. And how people come up with theorizing gender, gender roles, sexualities, and pretty much the totality of the schema of human exploration and sense of self (to relate to the tulpa phenomenon), it's hard to really condense the concept of tulpa in a way that people can absorb reasonably. For people to presume that a bringing up child has more responsibility than a host managing their bond with their tulpa ends up being a non-sequitur. And usually ends up with people having to use straw man to conclude they're not such of a big deal as we think they are. But that's only for people who have superficial ideals and are too indolent to go a little bit deeper, (i.e many people pack up their bags (metaphorically) and leave and feel uneasy with themselves with this type of thing). Having a child in this world is definitely a different spectrum, but when it comes to tulpa and how there's shared responsibility, it's not really as black-and-white as people think it is. Because the thing is, there's a point where the host may start becoming confused with the type of relationship they have with their tulpa, and sometimes the common sets are (but not limited to): - Anima/Animus - Parent/Child - Sibling - Etc. When a host treats their tulpa like a brother or sister and mixes around with seeing their tulpa as a child and the host as the parent, it can foster existential questions to come up very rapidly. Especially with how children in general have an innate drive for love, especially with siblings who end up in a "competition" to see who is appreciated/loved/accepted/acknowledged more; and also with how siblings use each other as contrast (to see who's better or worse), the concept of tulpa can be applied to that as well, and much more. So as people continue to end up in a self-stultifying hypocrisy with tulpa vs. dream characters in our lucid dreams (and dreaming overall), I find it strangely ironic that the countless number of dream characters and thought-forms in our natural sleep never isn't questioned as much compared to the concept of tulpa; how while in our natural sleep, when we wake up, we can still sustain a sense of identity for ourselves. While people think and use a hyperbole that having a tulpa may be a self-induced schizophrenia trip, they never really pay attention to how lucid dreaming allows the person to keep their sense of identity intact despite of the countless thought-forms they meet in their natural sleep. They're willing to presume that making a tulpa leads towards some mental dissonance, like dropping an atom bomb in your mind and not being able to bring yourself together. But they're usually a bit shy to use comparative analysis on how thought-forms in our dreams and tulpa, the rudiments behind them, are essentially the same. But of course, it's hard to explain this, especially when this forum itself and how some people may have bad vibes towards tulpa (especially with the ambiguity that comes with implied separate consciousness). And even with the Tulpa Land Database, that's just a pre-meal warmup to get into theorizing Tulpa and thought-forms in our dreams. And when it comes to shared responsibility, to presume there's no burden with the host and tulpa is actually engaging in naivete. And when things like marriage or having a relationship with someone in real life, how we theorize practical ways of associating tulpa as a completely different form of love compared to the love we express to others in waking life is a challenge itself. The point that I'm trying to get at here is that the tulpa's existence is sustained by the host's faith in them. Which means when a tulpa is trying to gain acceptance/love/acknowledgment/etc. from the host, the greatest limitation the tulpa has is the host themselves. Because they're within the confines of their minds and the perception of their reality, if the host ends up being at loss of what to do with the tulpa, it ends up being a double-bind situation that I explained in the tulpa.info forum like below: "if you reach a loss of what to do, your tulpa may start to worry and question your loss and while they're at loss for your loss, they have no means to have a source that can get out of their loss that comes with being tulpa, because that source that leads them out to better things has to come through you." So in a way, there is a burden and usually the practical way is learning how to become a better person and understanding yourself more by connecting with your tulpa. Of course, I'm not talking about the type of lessons of enlightenment you can get from some therapist and what have you, the type of lessons where the host can overcome the existential issues and slight cases of Solipsism that may occur when they're puzzled by their bond with their tulpa and the people they meet in their lives. So OP, a tulpa is a thought-form, just like dream characters in your dreams, the only difference this time is that you're just keeping your eyes opened to interact with them. When you start realizing that the unconscious mind knows a lot more about things than you think, you won't have the fear that you'll become schizo, because the more you interact with aspects of your minds and dreams and see how you can build mental rapport with dream characters and thought-forms in your dreams, you can do the same with tulpa. However, that takes progressive strives to improve yourself and constantly finding ways to expand your experiential totality of things. Children themselves are expansions of ourselves; the hope and desire of us wanting them to preserve the lineage and kinship is there, and tulpa can essentially be the same, except the experience is more of understanding yourself by making extensions of yourself (a bit more metaphorical than having real children obviously). And by that, simply by how the pre-conscious/subconscious/unconscious/whatever terms you want to use works with you to make the tulpa real to you. Tulpa, just like dream characters and how people impose roles with dream guides, spirit guides, etc. can be the conduit towards a never-ending race of reaching deeper levels of self-actualization. You can choose to do it or not, it's just one of many ways to reach some betterment of sense of self and beyond if you want to believe the experience will.