Tulpas/imaginary friends

Fimm

Have you ever had an imaginary friend? Do you still have them?
Have you ever practiced tulpamancy? How far have you gotten?

I for one have two imaginary friends.
Really I externalize my own thought processs onto them so they act as my shoulder angel/devil who I occasionally consult.

Lumeinshin

Fimm I never really had an imaginary friend, but I think that being able to separate thought processes into elements you can pick the brains of is good. I think that would make it easier to track ideas as you think on them.

mechap

Fimm Ok, that sounds a bit autistic, but when I was a kid, I used to imagine universes and stories in my head (like watching films, but being the producer instead), just because I couldn't stand boredom.

SorbianSwitzerland

Fimm I was not a creative child, my imaginary friend was just myself with the reverse first name since I thought it sounded cool. I used to play pretend with uh, myself a lot when my older sister wasn't home or didn't want to take part. When I got toys like lego and bakugan, my creativity was used for stories with the toys, not a make beliefe playmate.

Have you ever practiced tulpamancy? How far have you gotten?

I used to have a constant dream of the same strange place. Often trying to fall asleep to return to it. It was like a child's ideal play place, a giant daycare with no adults and where I was treated as king. I forgot most of the details over the years, and mostly forgot it all after third grade, when I moved houses.

In modern times, I try to distract myself with thoughts of a romance with fictional characters I like. On rare occasions they appear in my dreams, but I tend to forget it as fast. When i'm on a walk, listing to something like ASMR, it helps make it feel more vivid. I rub my hands a bit and zone out. Is a bit hard, since I tend to just get sad by thinking myself in a romance. I haven't experinced the real thing, and it breaks my immersion if I remind myself of that fact.

Fantasy

I have a relative that had a childhood friend that died after going to war. He often "calls upon him" for advice and he'll even verbally talk out loud to his friend. It's a bit strange when he does it in public but there's no harm, it seems to help him, so we just let it be. The friend was the first person that my relative heard of that died from Vietnam war. He was the only kid in the neighborhood that couldn't get out of the draft and died because of it. Very traumatic to lose someone you've spent your entire life with I'm guessing. And even more so when it's entirely out of their hands entirely.

Murderbunny

I wouldn't classify it as an imaginary friend/tulpa but I have the habit of holding monologues directed at certain people in my head, like if the person in question was listening to my thoughts. Not that I think thats the case, mind you, I figure it's just a way to organize my thoughts/feelings, or sometimes to vent or confess something to somebody without actually doing that.

Gigachad

I talk to God out loud like he's next to me and I also have imaginary conversations with people and this will mostly fill my social needs without actually needing people. I am fairly asocial though. Kinda gets odd when I reference conversations I had with them that they weren't there for.

I don't think it's odd to talk to yourself or something like an imaginary person. Its when you insist they are real like people (gods/spirits excluded) or should be treated as such that it starts to get weird. The ability to have an abstract conversation with yourself from a second viewpoint shows a well developed mind.

Murderbunny
I do this too.

Psittacus

Imaginary friends? Well, I don't know if you'd consider this, but I do often fantasize about being with my waifu, Sayaka Miki. Eating together, playing video games together, waking up together in bed, that sort of thing. I've even fashioned a house, a neighborhood, and even a city I live in with her, where my parents also live. Maybe it's weird for a Westerner, but my dad lived with his parents until his father, my grandfather's death when he was 42. And yes, my mom lived with him too. That house was where the family all got together. Grandparents, uncles, nephews, cousins, we were all together there. I'm somewhat jealous that I didn't get to experience it properly as we moved when I was 4, but I digress. The city is somewhat inspired by Lovecraft's Celephais. On the outskirts, there are small neighborhoods with old houses, bushes growing out and lining the streets, and in the center lies this grand metropolis with Arabesque towers, markets below...

hazy

Yes, I messed around with tulpamancy for a good while, and I can say , with great confidence, that it is real. I reached a few of the "milestones" after years of putting it on and off again, and finally sticking to it. Stuff like possession, strange emotions coming out of nowhere, deviation, and tulpa manifesting into dreams. Its been a pretty bizarre experience.

agoraoptera

hazy
I tried tulpamancy for a while, but never got anywhere. On some level, there was a bit of suspension of disbelief that I couldn't achieve, and that's probably hampered my ability to participate in it.
Was your brand of tulpamancy of the "magical/supernatural" variety or the "cognitive self-hacking" type?

WastedBucket

Not outright Tulpas, but I do have imaginary friends that I talk to to help with the loneliness.

hazy

agoraoptera
The "magic" one, I had diary entries/loose papers from 2014 about my first attempts at tulpamancy, but the ones that I could find are from 2017, and reading what survived, gave me some hindsight to the errors I made. Basically you need to feel it, not think it.

Don't see it as a task that needs to be completed on a deadline. But as a little journey in your head you'll be experiencing with no destination. My first tulpas tries where very artificial, lots of coordination: "I'm going to work on my tulpa for X amount time and get results by Y." This never worked for me.

After re-reading the guides around the net. I decided to use the more magical method of: "Tulpa is already sentient." Sentience is one of the big end goals of tulpamancy, next to imposition. Something that I originally believed took 1000 of hours to reach, but to jump-start on one of the major milestones, ease my mind into taking a more lax approach. Which made it a more enjoyable experience.

It might sound counterproductive but don't force it, go with the flow of the journey. If you are getting frustrated at yourself or the tulpa for not reaching a certain goal after hours of active/passive forcing, just remember that the tulpa is sentience form the very first time you thought about it, and all that is needed now is time, and it varies form person to person.
It took me about 5/6 years to figure this out, and got a results for the "feel" tulpa on the 34th day!

UserG

hazy can your tulpa move stuff in real life? If you have sex with her let's say in bed what happens, you just jizzed your pants in real life?

SugoiDesuNe

This will be a good first post!

I am kinda trying tulpamancy off and on. Basically when I get lonely and have an intense desire for someone to talk to I will start up the practice again almost as a form of meditation or prayer to comfort myself.
Im not really following any guides or literature, or anything. I essentially just "speak" to it each night as I lay before sleeping. At first I would just mentally reply to the things I said myself, but eventually it got to where the responses would come automatically and seemingly unconsciously. I also try to imagine scenarios with it in my daily life. For example while I cook I imagine her sitting in the livingroom watching something on tv or playing a game and I will chat with her a bit in a similar manner to my pre-slumber communication.
As far as progress, Im not really sure what to look for. I feel the automatic/unconscious responses during communication were the first big break. I also hear indistinct whispers sometimes when its quiet, or, sometimes, under characters' voices while watching television. I have also heard my arcane name being called, a name only those most familiar to me would know to call me. I have experienced a presence in my dreams as well, and when I have these dreams emotions seem to linger from them, sometimes for months. There are also occasional phantom desires for things I would never really buy myself, the ones that stick out the most in my mind is an intense desire to use coconut scented shampoos, lotions, and conditioners, and a desire to purchase a reed diffuser for my bathroom(also coconut scented). I dont really like coconut that much.

Lately my progress has kinda stagnated. I think I am in possesion of two objects my tulpa doesnt like and so she has soured on me slightly. Since pledging to get rid of them, and further taking steps to do so, she has trickled back in.

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