Tulpa Network
Tulpas => General Discussion => Topic started by: Minty on September 30, 2013, 09:02:30 PM
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Hey Guys,
I was thinking about this earlier, and I decided the best place to ask for opinions was here c:
I wanted to know what you guys think about making more people aware of tulpas? Would you rather keep our existence somewhat hidden, or do you want to spread our knowledge to everyone?
Personally, I wish more people knew we existed. Sometimes, when I talk to people my host knows, I have to pretend to be human, and lie to them so that they don't view us both as crazy or liars.
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I could easily argue both sides of this. But I'm curious what the communities opinions are.
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Why would you use tulpae in the title, and then use tulpas in the message?
Also, either way, it would be "tulpa awareness". Not plural.
Anyway, I do not wish the phenomenon to become more widespread for many reasons. The main being that enough people abuse tulpas (even if they don't have one) enough as it is. If it became a well-known thing, think of the tragedy.
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Anyway, I do not wish the phenomenon to become more widespread for many reasons. The main being that enough people abuse tulpas (even if they don't have one) enough as it is. If it became a well-known thing, think of the tragedy.
That's a good point, but I seriously doubt many people would spend that much time creating a tulpa just to abuse it.
I'm sure there are some people who would abuse tulpas, and although I'd like to guess or at least hope that their numbers are very few, even one tulpa being abused is a problem, that needs to be solved, and I'm not really sure how we could go about solving it.
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I'd honestly prefer public knowledge of multiplicity and DID to be a little bit better before the phenomenon becomes any more prevalent. The way these people are viewed is rather horrid and seeing as how similar the tulpa phenomenon is to healthy multiples(since some would argue that healthy multiplicity is actually comprised of accidental tulpas and vice versa) I feel like we would only be adding fuel to the fire rather than helping the situation, at least as we are now.
Maybe in the future things will change, but as it is now there are still people who lose their jobs, children, etc. because of their multiplicity, even if they do not suffer from it as a true disorder and it is as simple and positive as the tulpa phenomenon has been.
I feel if people had better understanding of how a mind could behave differently from the norm and they were treated seriously then we might see people creating tulpas with a more serious mindset. Maybe.
Right now I could go either way, but I'd rather not, uh, advertise tulpa creation so boldly. I saw a tumblr post that was getting a few notes that was essentially "Lifehack: Bored or lonely?? Make a tulpa!!!" which made me cringe. If the tulpa phenomenon spreads, I hope it's not in that fashion.
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I really wouldn't want yoloswag tulpas. Telling your friends and relatives about tulpas is fine imo, but advertising them can only bring about bad things, no matter how I look at it.
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I'd honestly prefer public knowledge of multiplicity and DID to be a little bit better before the phenomenon becomes any more prevalent. The way these people are viewed is rather horrid and seeing as how similar the tulpa phenomenon is to healthy multiples(since some would argue that healthy multiplicity is actually comprised of accidental tulpas and vice versa) I feel like we would only be adding fuel to the fire rather than helping the situation, at least as we are now.
Maybe in the future things will change, but as it is now there are still people who lose their jobs, children, etc. because of their multiplicity, even if they do not suffer from it as a true disorder and it is as simple and positive as the tulpa phenomenon has been.
I feel if people had better understanding of how a mind could behave differently from the norm and they were treated seriously then we might see people creating tulpas with a more serious mindset. Maybe.
Right now I could go either way, but I'd rather not, uh, advertise tulpa creation so boldly. I saw a tumblr post that was getting a few notes that was essentially "Lifehack: Bored or lonely?? Make a tulpa!!!" which made me cringe. If the tulpa phenomenon spreads, I hope it's not in that fashion.
I agree that we need to proceed with caution, or not proceed at all.
If we could correctly explain to the public how tulpas work, and how to be responsible with creating them, then I think we could do alright :smiley:
The best way to do this however is still up for debate :cheesy:
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I really wouldn't want yoloswag tulpas. Telling your friends and relatives about tulpas is fine imo, but advertising them can only bring about bad things, no matter how I look at it.
Yeah, having tulpas become a fad would be a terrible thing, and it could lead to a lot of people starting something that they can't properly complete.
But I'd like to think that being aware we exist is very much different than telling everyone to go make one.
There are some people in this world whose lives would be greatly improved with a tulpa, but theres a chance they might never know.
There are some people in this world who would be amazing hosts, but theres a chance they might never know.
Some people should create tulpas, some people shouldn't. We need to somehow get people to understand that.
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As of right now, I wish LESS people knew of tulpa.
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You can change the topic title yourself and I suggest you do it. Tulpae is a nonsense word that means nothing.
Right now, I'd say tuppers are dangerously close to mainstream, but because of the heavy advertising done before, the community (all the possible tulpa communities meant by that) is... Well. Let's say that it grew too fast and no one was willing to limit the direction it was growing. Sometimes a good thing, not so good when you get some pretty special people joining the different tulpa communities. Tulpas aren't something you want to show anyone anymore, really, so it's better if this stayed out while it's still in such a shitty state. The most used tulpa websites are full of horrible and immature people, some don't even actually believe that a tulpa is something more than a roleplaying character yet say they have one and let their "tulpa" (read: themselves playing a role) speak online. That sure doesn't hurt us in any way, nope.
The best case scenario would be to truly make this into something scientific. But there's not really anything we can do to help that ourselves, unless one of you is made of money. I guess the best thing we can do right now is to create a good community that is full of good information and doesn't make you cringe as you read the stuff posted. Maybe then I'd feel better about sharing tulpas with other people.
But now, a lot of pretending has to be done online and in real life so we don't seem crazy. That's one of those things I would like to see changing, for my tupper's sake. But right now, it would only go in a worse direction if tulpas went super mainstream.
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When I think of tulpas going mainstream (that is, even appearing on the news as a recent hype), I see a number of things happening.
For one, there would be lonely teenagers who would start making them, and then putting the blame on their tulpas for everything they might've done wrong. Even for extreme cases like when being convicted of crime, they would be able to say "it wasn't me, i was switched and my tulpa did this without me being aware of it" and this would of course cause issues if said person would be imprisoned, because moralfags from everywhere would start debating how that person is innocent and in jail.
Next, there would be such a large amount of controversy about it that it would be unbearable. If you look at #tulpa.info or the tulpa.info forums, many discussions/arguments on there are either:
A) Semantic arguments
B) Muh feelings and opinions
C) Anecdotal evidence treated as absolute proof
D) Issues that shouldn't even be issues (i.e. "halp someone impregnated my tulpa and isn't willing to pay child support")
In short, it is the relatively large number of members who do not take tulpas and tulpaforcing seriously that are ruining tulpas and their image. There are plenty of reasonable tulpamancers and tulpas out there, who will be as fair as they can be (i.e. saying "i know i can't prove my existence to you, but you can always make one yourself and have them do it for you" as opposed to "Are you implying that I'm not real!!???") when it comes to this subject, but somebody who enters the community and sees things like tulpa magick, pregnancy, marriage and other nonsensical topics that usually have nothing besides drama or speculations and empty claims behind them will not give the reasonable tulpamancers a chance, because their image of this phenomenon has already been ruined.
So, in my opinion, even if tulpas had scientific research behind them and were a proven phenomenon with their possibilities and restrictions, I still wouldn't want them to become mainstream. The more people there are, the higher the chance is that these communities will turn to shit.
tl;dr As of right now, I wish LESS people knew of tulpa.
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My biggest concern with the mainstreaming of the tulpa phenomenon would be the large increase of people using them to escape reality. There really should be a set social competence standard before learning about it.
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I don't really know anyone that should know about tulpas, so I'd rather keep it on the down-low.
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In general, I would answer a huge no to this ("Should the tulpa phenomenon be 'more mainstream'?").
I'm not against community growth, or the spreading of knowledge and useful information, however this can be something that is difficult to bring about in a conducive manner.
With the perspective that a lot of people, some uninformed, others immature, view tulpas from, tulpa communities could easily take a turn for the worst (some could say they've already taken one many turns in this direction. Maybe after 4 turns we'll end up back where we started) if such a thing happens (albeit slowly over time).
I saw a tumblr post that was getting a few notes that was essentially "Lifehack: Bored or lonely?? Make a tulpa!!!" which made me cringe. If the tulpa phenomenon spreads, I hope it's not in that fashion.
This is a great example of a bad way for tulpas to spread, and there are many others. People using them as excuses for their actions, people using them to brag or act superior to others (or attention-whore), people viewing them as role-playing, and in general, just the widespread misinterpretation of many things.
Unfortunately, it could be the case that all it takes is one small event (A post to the frontpage of Reddit, or a tweet from someone popular) to severely popularize aspects of the tulpa phenomenon, and depending on how such an event would play out, it could cause some long-term problems, especially for the larger communities.
I think it's a good plan to (try to) keep tulpas where they already are, and not force them into other communities, where the conditions would be very suboptimal.
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Heck no, I would hope less people knew about tulpas.
I wouldn't mind telling others about tulpas, it's just the scum that can be attracted and that can ruin everything for others.
If I were to tell other about tulpas so they could become serious tulpamancers, I would need to find a way to tell the right people.
Which is hard.
Like, shouldn't there be some kind of test to be made up or something?
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I see that the topic still includes a nonsense word that will complicate our search system. For ease of search later on, I'm changing it to a word that actually appears in the English language. I was going to change it to "tulpas" because that's what it would be changed into, but the plural makes absolutely no sense there, so I am changing it to "tulpa".
Sorry for the inconvenience, but I truly believe this is for the best. This is a thread that might very well be searched in the future in case we ever get more than one page worth of topics here.
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The problem is that the more people find out about tulpas, the more little kids, psycopaths and assholes will be making tulpas. It's gotten to the point where the tulpa community is really quite depressing.
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Is that some frontloading?
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I don't see why people don't want to refer to tulpas as imaginary friends. You can only see them through your imagination. And if they're not your friends, you're doing something wrong.
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So it's basically loosely defined words for things that weren't understood very well when those words were defined. And of course the community can't come up with words that give a clear and global definition of what they're addressing.
I hate semantics.
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Hey, that's why we have a glossary on this forum, so everyone knows what a certain word means when used on this site. Tulpa as a word is the most difficult one of course, but I'll pull numbers out of my ass and say majority here right now seems to think of tulpas as sapient or seemignly sapient enough to call them sapient beings pretty separate from you. Or something.
I'm pretty annoyed when people think that roleplaying characters are tulpas and call their roleplaying characters as such, even though the "tulpas" are always consciously parroted and puppeted. All day erry day and they're not even trying to hide it. Anyone doing that on my watch will, like, I dunno. Get an imaginary drink thrown in their face or something. It feels like lying to the rest until they actually tell you "oh, you mean my tulpa should be moving and talking on their own?". Such a let down.
I'd say an imaginary friend could be a tulpa and you could refer to your imaginary friend as a tulpa. But in my eyes, imaginary friend doesn't necessarily imply "sapience", while tulpa does. So a roleplaying character you think of as your "tulpa" might very well fit the imaginary friend category even if it doesn't fit the tulpa category. Basically, imaginary friend is a much broader category that includes tulpas and of course your imaginary friend could develop into a tupper. But it wouldn't be wrong to say a tulpa is an imaginary friend, just... Very broad definition.
You might want to write more about that level thing of yours, Fede. I heard about it previously ages ago and I dunno, maybe you'd like to flex your writing muscles. Sure, it's probably not something people would adopt (look at my level 69 tupra guise), but it's always interesting to hear what other people think. That's why the forums exist, after all.
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Pfft.
Well, like I said, I doubt it would actually catch on unless someone would be all "I think my tupra is like in stage two Fodde's super method theory". But I still would like to see you write about it.
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I don't accept it. Not enough text walls.
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Here we go.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/opinion/luhrmann-conjuring-up-our-own-gods.html?_r=1&
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I was actually hoping to see something useful regarding those stages.
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Just like how everyone isn't into imposition, huh?
I think just like imposition, you could add stuff about possession and switching. As in, where you think they should go or where it will be possible for it to happen and how well. I wanted to see actual definitions like these too, so good that you actually wrote them.
To me it seems almost like there should be separate stages for sapience/whatever, imposition/visualization/hallucinating and possible possession/switching if you think you could write something about them. I know it's pretty hard to write about something you haven't really tested yourself, so...
But still, I think that someone's visualization skills could easily be better than the tulpa's sapience "level". Or vice versa.
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Sure you didn't.
I'd probably go at it like, I dunno. Stage 1, sapience blah blah, visualization blah blah and maybe that possession blah blah. Tupper stats are required now.
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Afraid this isn't quite the thread for that. I think we're starting to go near the derail limit now.
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You're free to make a thread about this in case you want to. I could of course move some of the posts in this thread over there if people really think that's how it should go, but right now I think we haven't quite gone over the thread derail limit.
But this thread was about tulpa awareness and if you wanted more or less people to know about tulpas and why. Let's continue that topic when someone has something new to say.
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http://community.tulpa.info/thread-tulpas-in-new-york-times
To put it nicely, I really don't like this.
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I have no problem with the article itself, more with the .info thread. People are worrying way too much over publicity after one small note of tulpas in the New York Times. It's all "I want tulpas to be known!" and "No we should stay secret and underground!". This shouldn't matter. It's one article.
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Though the idea of "spread everywhere forever, everyone must know!!" doesn't really seem like a too good idea right now when most of the communities haven't gotten their shit together. There was a time when I would've been happy to link people to some tulpa-related stuff. Not anymore.
And unfortunately the vocal minority tends to be the one people like to pay most attention to.
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Sup.
I've been considering this a lot (see: just made a thread about the tulpa zine.)
I don't really have an opinion of the mainstreaming of it. If it happens, it happens, and there will be consequences for everyone, positive and negative. It's inevitable if this occurs, and I think the response shouldn't be "no, that can't happen" or "how can we stop it". I think it becomes an issue of getting shit together and presenting as a community of which the mainstream can communicate with, without coming off as crazies, teenagers, or pretenders. A pre-emptive strike of sorts.
Personally, as someone without a tulpa, I have tried to have conversations about tulpa to multiple people.
A few of them, surprisingly, would recount how they relate to tulpa. For example, an imaginary friend, rogue voices, etc. They all have the sentiment that they thought it was schizophrenic, unusual, and shameful. There seems to be an outstanding paradigm that the human mind does NOT hallucinate on its own (e.g. without drugs); if it does, you're sick.
The rest of those that responded to me prove this point: normally mouth agape, eyes wide, and the more I talk, it seems the less credible I become. They thought I was crazy, and this is coming from someone who does NOT have a tulpa. I can't imagine trying to communicate the idea as a host.
For tulpas to become acceptable in the mainstream, the mainstream has to accept the fact that hallucinations=/=drugs and schizophrenia. I think that when people talk about meditating, etc. as well, it is automatically connotative as being meta and not having real-world effects.
Back to my zine, this is sort of what I want the purpose to be. Something devoid of memes, tropes, and presented as a professional looking publication with production value. It's bells and whistles, but those are what legitimize information more often than not before scientific academia will take a look at it.
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Hallucinations are totally normal though. Everyone has them, when you fall asleep, as you dream, when you wake up, those spots in your vision that are really blind spots but your brain renders vision there anyway. And as Fede has shown me, these are rather normal as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_eye_hallucinations
I agree, but that's sort of my point. Hallucinations aren't treated as normal.
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Though the idea of "spread everywhere forever, everyone must know!!" doesn't really seem like a too good idea right now when most of the communities haven't gotten their shit together. There was a time when I would've been happy to link people to some tulpa-related stuff. Not anymore.
And unfortunately the vocal minority tends to be the one people like to pay most attention to.
I agree with this. It's not like I want tulpas to stay underground, that'd be stupid. But I don't see any good coming from advertising them.