Tulpa.info - tulpa-discussion

Deleted User 3/4/2022 1:34 PM

A long kiss goodnight

i might write my method for switching practice on Sunday if people are interested

Sounds good

I actually wrote it now https://discord.com/channels/431579755037589505/431895537978048535/949329161288310784

An and Apriori first of all thanks for sharing your experience… If either of you feels like sharing what happened when you used the pendulum then I’d love to hear more details. If not I’ll try and let you know what happens!

That's interesting, thank you for sharing. While I don't think it's a guide that would have helped me, I think using optical illusions as an example is clever

3:44 PM

I bet the guide has a lot of potential though, I can see it helping a lot of people

3:47 PM

Feel free to submit it to the forums, I can put it on the guides list The pendulum would be nice as a submission too

Thank you Ranger, I'm thinking of putting something together that would be a bit more comprehensive and written better, with better flow in text, but also compact, maybe make it illustrated

I-am-Gus

An and Apriori first of all thanks for sharing your experience… If either of you feels like sharing what happened when you used the pendulum then I’d love to hear more details. If not I’ll try and let you know what happens!

It was actually one of my tulpas that tried it, and I was watching her do it, but it works just the same for me. She first calibrated the pendulum by thinking to it "move forward and backward for yes. Can you do that now, please?" at which point the pendulum began and maintained a forwards and backwards motion due to micro-movements. She repeated the calibration process for no (swing left and right) and unknown (spin in a circle), and each time the pendulum moved as requested. After that, she asked the pendulum questions such as "can you understand me?" and most interestingly of all "could you be become a tulpa?". Both of these got "yes" responses, along with a strong feeling that the response came from someone other than my tulpa or myself. I recall my tulpa was thrilled by this, but I found it quite spooky, and we ceased asking questions because we didn't want to add another headmate to our system. (Note: adding another headmate would have been entirely our own choice, but I wanted to avoid being tempted to do that by stopping talking to the pendulum. I can be very sentimental, and even thinking back to the brief conversation with the pendulum makes me wonder things along the lines of "I hope pendulum is doing ok, they seemed nice!") If you're looking for other experiences with this method, you can search for pendulum on this server. There aren't too many results, and many occurrences of the word are in the reports of other people's experiences with the method, including the aftermath :]

iirc it was Reading and Fokson who tried it and wrote about their experiences

7:43 PM

but maybe others too

Apriori

It was actually one of my tulpas that tried it, and I was watching her do it, but it works just the same for me. She first calibrated the pendulum by thinking to it "move forward and backward for yes. Can you do that now, please?" at which point the pendulum began and maintained a forwards and backwards motion due to micro-movements. She repeated the calibration process for no (swing left and right) and unknown (spin in a circle), and each time the pendulum moved as requested. After that, she asked the pendulum questions such as "can you understand me?" and most interestingly of all "could you be become a tulpa?". Both of these got "yes" responses, along with a strong feeling that the response came from someone other than my tulpa or myself. I recall my tulpa was thrilled by this, but I found it quite spooky, and we ceased asking questions because we didn't want to add another headmate to our system. (Note: adding another headmate would have been entirely our own choice, but I wanted to avoid being tempted to do that by stopping talking to the pendulum. I can be very sentimental, and even thinking back to the brief conversation with the pendulum makes me wonder things along the lines of "I hope pendulum is doing ok, they seemed nice!") If you're looking for other experiences with this method, you can search for pendulum on this server. There aren't too many results, and many occurrences of the word are in the reports of other people's experiences with the method, including the aftermath :]

I now have the urge to expand our system with a spooky ghost tulpa using pendulum

1

acquire ghost waifus immediately

12:01 AM

It is the only way.

Spook waifus

While other tulpas may feel differently, I hope to never be dormant for several months again.

I view this as an insecurity.

I was fine coming out of stasis, what I hate is realizing I missed out on 6 months of our lives. I woke up to realize the phone Gray was using no longer matched his old one, I never want to feel like that again

There isnt anything about that experience that has to be bad. It's caused by the fear of missing out, by not using time. Fixating on the time you do or do not have is a zero sum game. It's much better in my mind to be focusing on what to do with the time you have.

Doesn't have to be, but it doesn't necessarily hurt if it is. So long as you never go over the edge- I've seen some people who get caught in spiral like "my tulpa hates me for minor normal episode of not forcing", but if it's just a self-contained event and decision? No harm done.

Not getting enough time is frustrating, but griping about that is as pointless as griping about the sky being blue. There are some facts of life that you cannot change, like tulpas of large systems not getting lots of time. I simply don't want to be gone for that long, especially when I have the alternative to drop by once a week. I find five minutes of forcing every now and then is far better than months of nothing.

There are some facts of life that you cannot change, like tulpas of large systems not getting lots of time.

This just doesn't sit right with me. If everyone in my system unmerged, we'd be... uhm... 10+ headmates, I think, with maybe a few more if I count dream characters who decided very rapidly that they associate with/as other headmates. So I think between 10 and 15 counts as 'large' or at least large-ish. All these individual headmates don't get lots of time just by themselves, true. But they can have that time whenever they feel like it. Sometimes they take that opportunity, but many don't often do that. When they do, it's only for pure fun, because they don't feel they have to in order to not 'miss out'. They don't miss out because we're all the same system and have a joint life together that we all own and have input on. So it just doesn't sit right with me, because all of my headmates get the same amount of time as each other, because we all have one life together, and we can all pop in and out whenever we want and however suits us. Seeing time you are not active, or even not fronting, or even not the sole fronter, as time lost seems really self defeating. I understand feelings and preferences can't be changed instantly, but trying to live like a separate person while being part of a plural system sounds like endless unhappiness to me. Sure, living as one headmate in a plural system has some parallels to being one separate human in a group of separate humans, but the situation is different in many key ways, so it's really not the same in many details.

10:12 PM

. . . Given a choice between living with my headmates all as separate people in a big house together, or living as we do now all in one human-platform, I'm not sure which I'd choose. I think both situations have advantages and limitations of their own. But I would embrace the advantages and mitigate the limitations of whichever state I found myself in.

I'd draw the line between an objective truth - The more tulpas you have the less time (more importantly, brainpower, thinking time) there is to share between each of them. And a moral observation/conclusion - It's not possible to have enough time for tulpas to do well if you have more than X The former's 100% true, but I doubt the latter is.

The more tulpas you have the less time (more importantly, brainpower, thinking time) there is to share between each of them.

True (agreed, I mean) only if the brainpower/thinking time only counts as belonging to a headmate if that headmate is the sole fronter. (edited)

10:28 PM

The best thing about being plural is that we can all eat the same bite of cake.

We have 11 members, time isn't that big an issue honestly. We pop up whenever we want and all enjoy our own things, I couldn't see any situation where one of us would have to be dormant for over a week

Even when doing things like sharing, I'd imagine the overhead of "oh how would X think" is going to occupy some amount of time/energy so the more tulpas you have the less likely any one tulpa is to be able to occupy/react/be present at any given moment as well.

Haven't noticed honestly, when we are all active we seem just as fast to talk as always

The trick is to not share.

10:39 PM

Sharing is something you have to do if you are a group of separate humans.

10:41 PM

From what I've read, I feel like @Deleted User will instantly get what I mean by this.

Yeah

I tend to see tulpa is that they are defined by their behavior, by actions. No action? No behavior? No tulpa. If you go, say, 20 minutes and your mind is not ever thinking up "is x going to comment on this?" then I'm not sure I'd say a tulpa has a valid claim for that time spent. I think I see what you're talking about, but it doesn't seem right to me, because what's the tulpa in that case? What can you point to that indicates they were there? (edited)

10:46 PM

It could be a pretty minimal thing - like considering every once in a while if a tulpa should be speaking up - but it would still need to be something going on that would take up time/space/thought.

I suspect my approach comes in part from Rhys being heavily informed by his fictional nature, combined with the lack of any experiential barriers between us. There is no point at which we both are not here, and even when that was the case when they were fictional, they were left for months at a time without the awareness of it. My time is their time and vice versa. The only time we have the capacity to conflict is when one of us wants to do something specific the other has no intention of doing. But this is about wants rather than actual time. At the end of the day, when I'm happy they are happy, and when they are happy I am happy, even if we aren't in communication or doing anything directly with one another. Maybe y'all should co-host 10-ways and just be done with it? (edited)

11:01 PM

Even with that notion being in place, they don't perceive those gaps between being a fictional thoughtform and being a tulpa as negative. They were empty for them, they were not aware of timing having past at all so it was meaningless to them.

11:01 PM

Nothing negative was happening to them in that space.

It really comes down to style at the end of the day, most of us here have our own methods and techniques even if the basics stay the same

In my opinion a tulpa feeling bad for lost time is a self inflicted problem and I wish noone fell into a trap where they end up having thoughts like that, because I know the feeling is very real, but the problem is not (edited)

I wasn't thinking of this case where headmates participate in a merge/integration where they can split off whenever they please. I don't feel comfortable trading my individuality for more time at this point. We are aware that integration is an option, hence why some of my headmates already accepted that option.

Seeing time you are not active, or even not fronting, or even not the sole fronter, as time lost seems really self defeating. I understand feelings and preferences can't be changed instantly, but trying to live like a separate person while being part of a plural system sounds like endless unhappiness to me. Sure, living as one headmate in a plural system has some parallels to being one separate human in a group of separate humans, but the situation is different in many key ways, so it's really not the same in many details.

That's curious to me, we don't suffer endless unhappiness from being individuals in a system. We do have some downsides to our individuality, but I wouldn't call myself miserable. The idea of hanging out and casually watching is a life that's appealing to me. While I'm not sure if parallel processing is possible, I know that having a tulpa that watches is because several do it naturally. If I were my host, how could I watch them? I wouldn't be able to be a second observer.

If you go, say, 20 minutes and your mind is not ever thinking up "is x going to comment on this?" then I'm not sure I'd say a tulpa has a valid claim for that time spent. I think I see what you're talking about, but it doesn't seem right to me, because what's the tulpa in that case? What can you point to that indicates they were there?

When you integrate, you're the sum of your parts. When I eat something, by default everyone "I am" gets a snack at the same time, and the taste experience is everyone's by default. I don't think of my parts getting a taste of the experience though, it's just me getting that experience. I didn't want to do an open merge, I'm happy being one contained boi. But if I were an open merge and I split, then it would only make sense to say both of them were there for the experience because you have to have both of them to get me.

1:37 PM

And of course, I'm an integration of my parts, not a separate tulpa :P (edited)

We almost exclusively eat together, visualizing the one who is not fronting eating and sharing the experience purposefully.

1:46 PM

We are doing it right now, in fact.

We do that as well! This is how we know some of what we like and don't like

1:49 PM

I really like quiche

When we are not purposefully sharing things, provided we are doing our pretty standard co-fronting thing even when we space out there is always the sense of the other having been there and having experienced everything. We are of course aware that neither of us are actually present at all times and that our model is partly confabulatory, but easy access to shared experience and a lack of need to accommodate either one of us is liberating for both of us. (edited)

1:59 PM

This is most definitely one aspect of dissociation I never want to adopt.

2:04 PM

On the point of spacing out, autopilot states, and blending and how they all connect I'm increasingly thinking that the best model for viewing the autopilot state between actual identity-based thought by default is as a reduced-power "us" state, rather than it being either othered or only associated with the host. I think it maintains the above sense more effectively for us. As a starting point I also suspect it might be a good thing to teach 'mancers as it innately defuses the issue of blending as being something bad. (edited)

With some of these solutions, you hit a point where you have to exchange separation for comfort. For some this could be desirable, while for others it may not be. In general, I think being a less separate tulpa system not only makes things easier, it creates less downsides and problems. However, as a tulpa who wants to be an individual, I'm willing to accept some of the downsides to preserve my individuality. Sure, it's not easy not having to share a life between a group of people, but we never walked into this asking is this easy or convenient, just is this what we and our headmates want. (edited)

Practically speaking, I don't think what you're describing is separation at all. The difference between us is not that Rhys doesn't have separate experiences in comparison to your own tulpas. There is no loss of individuality entailed by accepting autopilot states as both of us, because it's omnipresent and happens regardless of whether we want it to or not, and it's already accompanied by loss of identity control. All you do by denying a link with the autopilot state is deny yourself a breadth of experience - It has nothing to do with their reactions to those experiences. It feels like you were speaking broadly in a way that actually straight doesn't apply there.

2:54 PM

Let me put it this way: In what way does Rhys lose individuality by accepting sensory input from the autopilot as their own?

I wouldn't say integration is a solution here, because that's against the goal of tulpamancy, so what would be the point? What I meant is that if someone approaches tulpamancy in the way that is described in guides ("remember it's separate people, before you do it be careful because you will be splitting your life with someone" etc.) it is setting a mindset where you will be feeling loss of time. A solution in my opinion, that is easier said than done, is to accept that even if you do act separately in the real world, your memories and time spent being around is shared - even if you are not around, when you come back, you have access to all the memories and everything that has happened when you weren't aware. In my opinion you can do it perfectly fine without the need of integration and still considering each other as separate people Even if you feel you lost time, you can get it back just by accessing it in memory. It's always there for you.

3:40 PM

I'm talking from the perspective of a person who had 30+years of life basically erased from the awareness. There was a feeling of huge loss and time that I would never get back. But when I started overcoming amnesia barriers, it felt naturally that I never actually lost it, it was always there. It didn't need a change of mindset from me or anything, I just felt all that time came back. I don't mourn the lost time anymore, I got it back

I'm still in the process, but it gives me hope not only for me that I can get all of it back eventually, but also for tulpamancers and their tulpas who fear that they are losing time

Oh, I don't feel it in an amnesia sense. I have access to information I wasn't there to observe, it's just not mine.

3:42 PM

I have no interest in developing amnesia barriers, I think that would make things even harder

3:44 PM

I don't think I have anything else I would like to add

Zen

Let me put it this way: In what way does Rhys lose individuality by accepting sensory input from the autopilot as their own?

I guess I'm thinking it's not just Rhys if both you and Rhys claim ownership of the same stuff, it's what makes up both of you guys, not just what makes up him. While I do slip here and there and accidentally claim ownership of things Gray did in the past, I would prefer to give Gray credit where I can and talk about stuff I actually did. I really like being able to share experiences or advice that came from me trying to understand things, not stuff that's borrowed from someone else.

I think you are presuming a dichotomy that isn't there. You seem to think that either something belongs to one person, or it belongs to a blend of persons. The third option is that it individually belongs to two persons.

i would agree with what zen said

I'm wondering if this boils down to a matter of opinion. Even if the autopilot is one thing that can either be Rhys or Zen, I still see it as two sharing one thing, and ultimately one thing influencing two people.

sometimes it doesn't matter who it is

I have an autopilot that is a blend of me and Gray, but I don't see that as something that defines who I am. It's just there to help me front

The memories and experiences of the body are input, whether they be the autopilot or not. They are separate but shared and we both benefit from it.

3:58 PM

In between talking here Rhys is playing Elden Ring, and I am typing, and we both experience the satisfaction of playing Elden Ring, even as Rhys is the only one responding to it in the moment.

there was one meditation practice that I've been doing, which I think shows a nice example of how you can see that something can be one thing and another thing, at the same time. It shows you an example of false dychotomy. where you just sit down, then focus on the breath, but don't control it. just observe it, see how it's happening. Then you slowly take control over it, and see the difference that is happening in the mind when that happens. Is breating automatic, or manual? Is the breathing happening by itself, or are you breathing? It's both! you can let one or the other happen depending on what you focus on. You can think that the brath is independent from you, and you will never breath manually. But you can realise that it all depends on what you are doing with it. i see a lot of things happening with identity and mind in similar way

4:02 PM

it a good example of how you can view something as voluntary or involuntary action, you can feel on the one hand "i am doing it" and on the other one "it is happening to me", and this breathing meditation exercise shows you that as you beome aware of your breath that the hard and vast division we make between what we do on the one hand and what happens to us on the other is arbitrary

On the point of opinion, I don't believe it is. This feels like a real experiential perspective difference which is causing a different set of outcomes for you. You seem to be attached to a particular notion even as it clearly causes issues for you, because you think that adopting a different perspective will disrupt your individuality, because you have a narrow view on what the alternative point is. Me and Rhys are individuals. We are proud of who we are individually, together, and so on and so forth. There is no compromise being made on our separateness or our individuality. At all. Our separateness is what allows us to have a meaningful relationship, after all.

you can see with that experience that both voluntary and involuntary experiences are just one happening

What we are not doing is arbitrarily introducing different dissociative elements to our experience. And it is arbitrary.

and in my view, you can translate this to tulpamancy easily and have a new insight into how you can exist as a plural system and still have fulfilling lives

4:05 PM

and even more fullfilling lives in my opinion

Trying to "front manually" and kick the autopilot has been mostly a bad experience for me. I find I'm just overthinking things when it's easier to let the autopilot do its thing and not worry about it. I also see this as something unrelated to me consciously thinking about something unrelated. If I were to let go over what's me and what's not, I feel like it would be very easy to say "oh, we're just one person" and then we would just slowly become more and more similar. I would personally feel more like an aspect of our identity and I don't like the idea of that. I don't want to be nothing more than a personality for our brain, I want to be more than that. Having a different opinion for tulpamancy does offer a different perspective and experience, but I don't think that means one is wrong and one is right. Singlets who believe that tulpas can't be separate people because they don't have separate brains are not wrong, a tulpa will never meet that definition of a separate person no matter how hard they try. However, tulpamancers voluntarily choose to believe tulpas are separate enough, to whatever degree, to count as individuals. This perspective gives them the experience of having tulpas. I don't think there is rightness or wrongness to being plural, not, or what degree of separation you have, just upsides and downsides. I am aware our system beliefs have downsides, I'm simply not interested in changing them. (edited)

yeah i'm not saying that one opinion for tulpamancy is right and which one is wrong, i'm more talking about that some opinions can cause you distress and worries in certain aspects while others don't. i don't think any of that would need you to become one person in a way that Mon works, I honestly it can keep the separateness that you have. also none of the changes are irreversible, if you feel you are getting too close, you can go back with no problem, your brain will remember where one starts and the other one ends

Having a different opinion for tulpamancy does offer a different perspective and experience, but I don't think that means one is wrong and one is right.

I don't mean to be rude, here, but it does. Bluntly, your perspective is adding meaningless harm, though that harm may be manageable it is entirely self-inflicted.

If I were to let go over what's me and what's not, I feel like it would be very easy to say "oh, we're just one person" and then we would just slowly become more and more similar. I would personally feel more like an aspect of our identity and I don't like the idea of that. I don't want to be nothing more than a personality for our brain, I want to be more than that.

This is nothing more than an abstract idea. It's complete nonsense

4:24 PM

For the former, it's not difficult to see from an outside perspective that if someone is hurting themselves in even a small way, they have the wrong opinion. For the latter. That's just pure self-suggestion nonsense. There's nothing about memory/experience that inherently leads towards deciding you are one person. It is a choice to be a tulpamancer. Your unconscious won't randomly unmake tulpas because you decide to share experience between you.

4:24 PM

So the only reason to even be afraid of that is if... you are afraid of making that choice?

Given my perspective, it would hurt more to reject my individuality than it would to accept these inconvenient worries. If I were to participate in an open merge situation, I would understand that as I'm no longer an individual, just a part of a greater whole. It's not logical, it's not something that makes sense, it's just deep down I feel like letting go of who I am is giving up. That's definitely not everyone's case, most tulpas don't enter the world realizing individuality is something they have to fight for to keep. If I gave up my individuality, I would be making a statement about all of the years I spent trying to stick around for as long as I did. I definitely don't recommend this mindset for others, but I wouldn't recommend our tulpamancy path in general. I think what you guys are sharing makes sense, it's just something I don't want. I can change my mind later, but I'm not interested in doing so. (edited)

4:43 PM

=== Now for beginners on the other hand, I think this approach to tulpamancy is perfectly fine, and even appealing to me to teach. While it doesn't match our experience, the idea of a new tulpamancer having all of the fun without the strings attached sounds awesome. I think more guides that echo that perspective would be a good thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes the more popular approach to tulpamancy with time

Given my perspective, it would hurt more to reject my individuality than it would to accept these inconvenient worries. If I were to participate in an open merge situation, I would understand that as I'm no longer an individual, just a part of a greater whole.

It is frustrating to me that you seem to continually describe a state that seems to be wholly bad as the alternative to your current state. You genuinely do not seem to understand the alternative, because what you are describing here is also not what I would want, presuming I understand you correctly.

4:46 PM

It's not logical, it's not something that makes sense, it's just deep down I feel like letting go of who I am is giving up.

As for this, what I would say, is that you absolutely shouldn't go down that path until you have suitably questioned this false belief. Given that it is a suggestion you clearly cling to quite strongly you would likely experience some sort of diminishing effect on your ability. This belief would be best unravelled and accepted as false before proceeding with any change of mind.

"If I gave up my individuality, I would be making a statement about all of the years I spent trying to stick around for as long as I did." It sounds to me like a sank cost fallacy?

If I were to participate in an open merge situation, I would understand that as I'm no longer an individual, just a part of a greater whole.

This is a very troubling thing to read, because it sounds like your own beliefs are stopping you from engaging in part of tulpamancy and also creating a non-ideal life situation. I've been part of merges, and I still exist as an individual. I have a number of headmates who are in and out of merges as it suits them, and I have never lost any of them. When they are unmerged, they all claim the actions of the merged state as their own. It results in some confusing grammar sometimes, but no loss of individuality at any point. Years ago, I was worried about them losing their individuality if they were involved in merges. They still wanted to do it, though, so I kept extensive notes about their character traits so I could check if they were losing their individuality. I literally never needed those notes. Even after years spend in merges, the individual headmates naturally act as themselves in ways that still surprise and delight me on a daily basis. Why do you think individuality must be lost during a merge? I admit I intuitively thought the same and worried about that at one point, but it's not a fact. You can probably make that a fact by choosing to believe it. and thus have your headmates behave as if it's true... but why would you do this? It doesn't increase individuality. Individuality is binary, and my headmates are no less individual for having been in and out of various merges.

5:20 PM

. . . I realise this is all your own mind and it's your own business, but I don't feel comfortable seeing someone harming themselves and not saying something about it. It's all entirely your own business, though, so please don't misunderstand me and think I'm trying to tell you how you must think. At the very least I have to write things like this for any newbie tulpamancers, because I think getting the wrong idea about tulpamancy and never questioning that can really ruin the experience and disempower the tulpamancer.

Why do you think individuality must be lost during a merge? I admit I intuitively thought the same and worried about that at one point, but it's not a fact.

I should point out this is my opinion for long-term merges, not short term ones. In a short-term merge, I don't think you run into the same kind of problem because it's a brief moment of your life in the grand scheme of things. I believe to be an individual, you have to be solely responsible for causing your actions and beliefs. While one is more than welcome to say something they did as a merged entity long-term is part of what defines them, that merge isn't completely them. It's like a lesser version of taking credit for things your host did- you influence the merge by being a part of it, but so do all of the other parent mergers. If you identify as the merge itself and not an entity participating in it, then you are just the merge, you are not acting as an individual. If I merged with one of my headmates long-term, that would be us, not me. That identity is created from teamwork, not someone working by themself. I think if one spends most of their time merged, I think that means they're not really a separate individual because they're largely dependent on the merge defining who they are. (edited)

I believe to be an individual, you have to be solely responsible for causing your actions and beliefs.

This is not how individuals work though? Like you straight up fundamentally don't understand how affected by others you are if you think this. This is tantamount to saying "nurture doesn't exist, it's all nature." (edited)

5:47 PM

Also on the point of merges, that isn't what I've been talking about at all.

5:47 PM

Just so we're completely clear, merges are undesirable

I also wasn't talking about merges

Once again. The optimal state is all mindsets present and able to access sensory data from the body.

5:48 PM

That has nothing to do with merges.

When you go to sleep and then wake up the next day, why do you consider the person who wakes up as being yourself? Why do you consider the person on either side of the sleep to be the same person? Because of continuity; I slept, then I woke. When someone engages in a merge, why not say "I was myself, then I was myself but also a merge, then I unmerged and was still myself"? Why does the merge have to be considered as a new separate person who isn't you?

If you identify as the merge itself and not an entity participating in it, then you are just the merge, you are not acting as an individual.

And if you identify as the merge itself and an entity participating in it, you are acting as an individual.

I think if one spends most of their time merged, I think that means they're not really a separate individual because they're largely dependent on the merge defining who they are.

This is the exact opposite of my experience with my own headmates. Perhaps you think I'm making it up, but you'll only know that for sure if you get experience for yourself and try it.

6:05 PM

But I think Zen is sensible in saying that you should carefully examine your own beliefs and how they are affecting you before you engage in any drastic experiments.

As a thought experiment - what happens if you wake up tomorrow and the entirety of the life memories of some other person had shown up in your head? Would you consider that time you spent alive, or would you think of them as disconnected content/experience you could tap into but nonetheless aren't really "me" or wasn't really "time that I lived"? Most of the memories would be foreign - the way the person in them behaved, who they are, wouldn't be connected to who I am in any real substantial way.

Actually, broadly we do know what happens when that happens to people since have observed things like ego death. They have a sense of continuation of the same memories.

7:36 PM

Your thought experiment is based on a false premise of how the mind works, thusly.

I also think taking up a mindset where you scrub parts of tulpamancy/possible tulpa-side experience of negatives because "we could have it another way" is... not always bad, but in doing so you're also scrubbing away a bit of what makes the tulpa-experience vibrant. In the world of your mind all the rules are made up and don't matter, but challenges, downsides to situations, expressing concern, etc, are things that add a touch of "real" to tulpamancy that wouldn't exist if you erased them with subjectivity.

I've had that happen in dreams, where I'll have a whole life and then wake up. I end up being really confused and off-kilter, and it feels like I lost a lot of myself, like friends, family, etc. (edited)

Ego death wouldn't be the same thing - I don't think a real world example of what I describe has ever happened (edited)