Tulpa.info - tulpa-research

https://community.tulpa.info/thread-stanford-tulpa-study-my-experience-and-looking-for-more-participants

Stanford Tulpa Study: My experience and looking for more participants

The event was 3 days long: 2 for travel, and 1 day for scans and interview. I flew in in the evening, and caught a university paid Uber to the hotel. It was in the afternoon at this point. The flight

It was really cool to read your experience on it.

Bumping this because I would like to see more responses to the survey. Feel free to only fill out the pre-survey section, but it would be awesome if you did the full experiment. Please feel free to fill it out, even if you don't think you can parallel process, don't believe you can parallel process, or don't have a tulpa. https://forms.gle/SEJRqtgwaAkd6RW38

Pre-Experiment Survey: Parallel Processing Tool Experiment

THIS SURVEY MUST BE COMPLETED BEFORE PERFORMING THE EXPERIMENT. This survey's goal is to get some background information on the participants aiding in the experiment. This survey and this experiment are NOT designed to prove if Parallel Processing is real or not, only if the...

If anyone has trouble running the experiment because your browser blocks flash, let me know and I will send you a customized video of the experiment you can use. Feel free to send me a DM or PM me on the forums and I will send you a link to Google Docs. ~~If I send you a video, you don't have to send me another one.~~ If I send you a video, please use the video as if you were playing the experiment. The original instructions apply. (edited)

https://shinyuu.net/2019/09/are-tulpas-a-mental-disorder/

Shinyuu

Are tulpas a mental disorder?

Everyone’s rushing to call tulpamancy a disorder, DID, or even schizophrenia as soon as they learn it’s not a practical joke and people actually practise tulpamancy. But is tulpamancy a disorder? I…

@Shinyuu This is not research. It's a blog post. You have various figures and charts put up but there is no explanation of methodology, no referenced data set, nothing that suggests this is anything except you taking a very long time to say "tulpas are not a mental illness". If you did, in fact, run a survey with 184 replies, then you should link your data set (with any personal information excluded). I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it seems unlikely that any survey at all was conducted here - based on my past efforts, 184 responses (even without trimming) seems very difficult to attain, especially since I cannot find a link to this survey anywhere.

9:29 PM

Furthermore, there is a fundamental flaw with your approach to this study - you have a relatively large component of your respondents that identify as non-tulpas, yet still include them in your analysis of how tulpas exhibit similarities and differences with DID?

Id just like to answer this one myself. To begin with, what is a disorder strictly medically speaking. A disorder is something that is problematic and causes significant dysfunction/deabilitation to the sufferer. Any abberation in the brain is no such thing. Why? Because if any abberation would be a disorder, then even having a high IQ, something generally thought to be a blessing, would be classified as having a disorder. People with high IQ usually show higher signs of depression and such, so it aint all roses and sunshine. The depression, in this case, is the actual problem. It is a side effect. However, when treating that depression, you are usually perscribed anti-depressants... not lead pills (lead is highly toxic dont eat it) that causes you to be less smart. And yes, there are of course also detriments in creating a tulpa. But... do they outweigh the benefits enough to warrant fixing. Usually not. Otherwise there wouldnt even be mutliple communities trying this out. So tulpas do not even fall into the category of causing significant dysfunction, and thus do not fall into the category of a disorder.

1. I understand your point about any aberration being a disorder-- but who's to say that we aren't all supposed to have high IQ and the dumb people are the disorder? : P (I'm completely facetious here, but really, I don't understand the hyperbole in this case.) Really, it's not just a problematic thing. Here's what the DSM-5 says: A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities. A bit wordy (I cut out a little bit explaining about mourning a death / conflict between individual & society not being a disorder). But it's a clear definition; it's a syndrome, which implies it's something with long-standing effects, which frequently affects a person's behavior, thinking, or ability to regulate emotion. It also specifically states that they are usually associated with great distress in social, work, or other important things. Not that they always are.

6:38 AM

According to that, technically speaking, a tulpa is a disorder, based on the fact that it's an entity that alters your behavior (you definitely behave differently when you have a tulpa, as you've got another person in your head), probably alters your thinking, (you have another perspective helping you out all the time and pointing things out that you might not have seen, to begin with) and does both to a degree that some people could easily withdraw from normal social lives and stagnate instead of progressing. Just as there are successful people with depression, tulpas don't keep you from being successful, but it is a risk to some. It isn't about whether it causes dysfunction in the eyes of the DSM, it's about whether it is a longstanding difference between you and a person without it and with the downside that some people could experience, even with your definition it could easily still apply in some cases. 2. Please inform me of where lead pills are brought into this. Chelation is not an approved therapy for anything other than helping to treat heavy metal poisoning such as lead poisoning and the marketing of chelation as a therapy for other things is illegal. 'Unapproved uses of chelation therapy have resulted in harm, even death. This is an unacceptable risk in the absence of proven benefit. Several unapproved "chelators" are marketed for home use. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have warned several companies that they are breaking the law by marketing such "therapies".' - https://tinyurl.com/yysqb6hc (chelation: therapy or therapy) https://tinyurl.com/y4h2qctb (fda views) (edited)

Chelation: Therapy or "Therapy"?

Chelation therapy is a treatment for heavy metal poisoning: iron, mercury, arsenic, and lead. Some people give chelation

Questions and Answers on Unapproved Chelation Products

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advises consumers to be wary of so-called “chelation” products that are marketed over-the-counter (OTC) to prevent or treat diseases.

6:41 AM

3. I applaud your efforts to show tulpas as being not considered a disorder, probably because of the stigma included in the name 'disorder'; but a disorder is first and foremost a difference, not a sentencing to doom; of course, I'm not a person that's been educated in this sort of thing, I'm just working off of cited resources. But there was no cited resource list for the thread and no proof that any of it was anything other than a random person rambling, so I don't feel bad about rambling, myself. I would personally prefer that tulpas not get hit with a disorder verdict simply because of that stigma, but there are communities that crop up around any kind of disorder as well as various phenomena such as tulpas. So, I don't really see how any of your points logically lead to the conclusion that there's no way that tulpas can't be a disorder, because they easily could be one.

6:43 AM

4. The validity of having a tulpa, a real person in your head, is not undermined by whether or not the DSM someday includes tulpas as a listed disorder due to the significant effects it can have on a person practicing tulpamancy. Therefore, though I agree that tulpas probably shouldn't be classified as one, you seem to be operating on the basis of 'disorder bad, therefore, must not be disorder' rather than 'can it really be considered a disorder, and why?'

6:43 AM

Sorry for my text wall, everyone, and if you have a differing opinion but don't want to flood the channel, please feel free to DM me about it. So long as nobody gets too salty, I do enjoy intellectual debates, being proven wrong, and having more educated folks tell me their opinions. (edited)

@salad https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas/comments/c1d1zk/tulpa_as_a_personality_questionnaire/

"Tulpa as a Personality" Questionnaire

Posted in r/Tulpas by u/ShinyuuWolfy • 30 points and 11 comments

7:15 AM

7:15 AM

and the localised one:

7:16 AM

and yes; it's not a "research" research; but a couple of people within the community said it might be useful to post it in here

7:18 AM

@TrustyasHeck those are all valid points; thanks.

7:20 AM

you have a relatively large component of your respondents that identify as non-tulpas

7:20 AM

yeahs.. two

the point of the article was to take a casuistic approach to the question of "are you flippin' mad" and explain in simple terms how tulpas might look similar to a personality disorder yet shouldn't be anything of a major concern. It should be a good reference to parents I had to talk to ("omg my kid is going crazy" – your "kid" is a twenty one years old woman; gee) who see tulpamancy tightly connected with schizophrenia

Ahhhh.

7:36 AM

For that purpose, it works well, although it might be a good idea to incorporate something to the effect of noting that your argument is for differentiating between (a) tulpa(s) and existing disorders.

7:37 AM

That way you're less likely to get needlessly ranted at about whether it's a valid argument because of x y or z xP

7:37 AM

Great to see the links to the survey though! (edited)

that's fair

Hmm... i dont think my request is fully related to this channels but its the best place to post it. I need a reliable source on depersonalization and derealization. I know that there are some neurological disorders which contain it and i wonder if anyone has got a copy of the current iteration of the DSM. If so, DM me pictures of those pages. thanks a lot.

https://4.files.edl.io/8c29/04/23/18/201958-1268de6f-75bc-4112-afbf-f83781979af4.pdf

1:28 PM

Here's the whole thing, check for yourself

Thanks brotha

I have a book on DID, I'll copy you the pages on those topics when I get home

Thanks!

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depersonalization-derealization-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20352911

Depersonalization-derealization disorder - Symptoms and causes

Samuel Veissiere, Assistant Professor of psychiatry talking about Tulpamancers. https://youtu.be/b0cakXwiZ8s?t=3916

6:30 PM

in mind field

they start talking about tulpas at 1:05:15

Oh holy crap, I stopped watching before I got that far in to go watch the now free Mind Field episodes, thanks for linking that

4:15 AM

That's basically the best publicity we could have gotten, I think.

Please fill out my very short survey on naming tulpas! It was just revised so that the questions are properly mutually exclusive (so if you were one of the previous 6 respondents, your old response was deleted and you'll have to resubmit a response)

https://forms.gle/jcGNapTc9Z5JzPL87

Tulpa Name Survey (Revised)

One entry per system. The results of this survey will be made public. The survey was revised to clarify the questions and make them mutually exclusive and the responses from the unrevised version have been deleted.

I would like to see if tulpas are able to tickle their hosts. Most of the time people can't tickle themselves because they know it's themself doing the tickling. My hypothesis is that tulpas are different enough from their hosts that they can tickle them. Link to the survey here: https://forms.gle/2jHT29oKBqtq2VLA7 No personal information is requested and it is suggested to not provide any. Thank you, be well.

Possession and Tickling

This survey is intended to help see if tulpas can tickle their host while possessing. No personal information is collected and any details entered into this form may become public in the recap post at the author's discretion. Please take care when entering personal details ...

@Deleted User

An update on the parallel processing test experiment- the surveys for it are still open and I am planning on releasing custom videos for those who can't use flash soon. However, I do not want to link those things yet because the forums are down and I have more instructions posted there. I would like more responses for both the general survey and the full experiment. I would like at least 10 people to complete the experiment before releasing results for it, and I would like at least 25 responses I can use for publishing the survey results. If I cannot achieve the experiment minimum, I will not release those results publicly. However, I will release the survey results regardless. In the meantime, I made this unrelated survey about a switching test. I am trying to switch and I considered using this test to double check if my switching attempt was successful or not. The survey is about 5-10 minutes long and the test itself takes about 5-8 minutes. You don't need anything fancy to do this test, and all of the instructions are included in the survey. https://forms.gle/c1JNTg55t5UJWrw38 (edited)

Testing a Test : Does this prove if a system has switched?

I created this survey to see if a switching test I used recently is effective at indicating whether or not a successful switch occurred. This survey is for personal research, however I may post the results if enough respondents are interested in having their results posted. ...

uhm, @A long kiss goodnight ?

6:44 PM

the switching test is asking us to possess...

6:45 PM

we never really learned how to do possession, Lumi and Reisen only tried once for like 5 minutes like 5 years ago

6:45 PM

Lumi can't move any part of the body when he's not switched in...

I tried the possession version of it but I don't think I did it right. I assigned a tulpa to each arm and it worked, but the first question didn't seem to be worded quite right. I think both of mine were switched out (since none of mine can switch yet) but I'm not sure. They could have been fronting, at least.

fronting can mean switched or (full-body) possessed, and if they both had control I guess that's co-fronting

6:48 PM

anyways I dunno if I'm like, supposed to fill out the rest of the survey just saying "dunn work"

6:48 PM

it doesn't seem based on the questions like you really accounted for this

6:54 PM

well I have it done sort of, and just not submitted, but I'll wait on your response to know if you're even interested in ours if we can't possess

My system can co-front, possess, and switch. I don't see why we can't do all three parts.

7:17 PM

That would be the ideal study conditions, right, if your goal is to distinguish between the three states? For systems to do the test in all three states.

I mean, it sounds like the Switching test alone already uses all three..

7:26 PM

probably just do that one

7:27 PM

as it's set up, doing it three times would put you down as 3 different people I think

we never really learned how to do possession, Lumi and Reisen only tried once for like 5 minutes like 5 years ago I assumed that even if you never possessed, chances were you would achieve it accidentally. I didn't anticipate Lumi being completely locked from bodily control, I'm sorry.

I tried the possession version of it but I don't think I did it right. I assigned a tulpa to each arm and it worked, but the first question didn't seem to be worded quite right. I think both of mine were switched out (since none of mine can switch yet) but I'm not sure. They could have been fronting, at least.

The objective was to pick one arm, not use two. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear enough.

well I have it done sort of, and just not submitted, but I'll wait on your response to know if you're even interested in ours if we can't possess

Feel free to submit it, I think that's really interesting.

That would be the ideal study conditions, right, if your goal is to distinguish between the three states? For systems to do the test in all three states.

I thought about that, but I didn't want any test to influence the outcome of the other two. (edited)

I mean we could surely learn to possess if we tried for a bit, but thinking everyone who can switch can possess is just wrong

Indeed, we can switch and it superseded our ability to possess long ago

and yeah I thought you meant both arms at first lol, but the results part made more sense

7:31 PM

anyways that said, it seems like maybe not being adept at possession for the switching test won't give you the exact results you're looking for

7:31 PM

ie how being switched affects how possession works, right?

7:31 PM

so I'll not submit our "results"

7:32 PM

unless you want "the not-switched person couldn't move the arm at all"

I'm okay with that response

even if they couldn't move it when the fronter wasn't fighting them?

7:33 PM

that's why I didn't submit it, that didn't seem accounted for

I was thinking that it would be interesting to show that some systems can't possess and talk about what that looks like

I'm not really interested in surveys etc. because most of the time the questions are very narrow and the concepts are presented in ways that are unrelatable to our internal experience

7:34 PM

But I think that's probably true for a lot of people who fill out surveys anyway

7:35 PM

In any case I'm especially not interested in surveys that say "prove"

The girls possessing will eventually lead to them switching in anyways... kinda a bust our attempt. They associate too strongly with the body ._.

well I think this survey was less "for scientific data" and more for Ranger's exact situation, even if he discusses the results it's not universal stuff, just for people in similar situations

7:36 PM

still useful, just a different purpose than like scientific research for college or somethin

Then I especially should not take it in that case

MarkdownContext { Depth = 1 }

7:37 PM

I would say "That mindset would make basically no one post on the forum outside of the Research board"

7:37 PM

but you don't really post, do you?

Not much

Well, I'm glad I tried anyway. I still think it's worth publishing the unintended side effects, otherwise someone could make a survey like mine again

7:39 PM

Plus, it sheds some light on the serious disconnect between possessing and switching systems

its very difficult to let host possess. As well as not switch in when being asked to only possess for me and sis

Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad to make a survey to help a personal case

serve yourself kek

But based on what I know about Ranger's internal experience and my internal experience, contributing my idea would probably do more harm than good

well we shouldnt have participated then either should we...

I updated the survey with a note about this.

@A long kiss goodnight we did the study, it's funny how Diana always wins, she wins much easier when she's in front though

hmm..

I noticed that interesting trend as well. For whatever reason, the tulpa has leverage on their host. It's interesting and I look forward to talking about it

this isn't the case for us

2:05 PM

it's the opposite. we can only assume it's because i'm just half a year old or so

I reached my goal of getting 25 publishable responses for the arm test survey!

I am going to keep the survey open until I stop getting responses for 3 days. In the mean time, I will take a deep dive into the data I collected and start drafting my write up of the results. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted results and for those who are interested in submitting results! I look forward to publishing them in the near future! For those who's results are not getting published, thank you for taking my survey! It gave me a lot more insight on how other systems control the body and helped me a lot!

Where will it be published?

I'll leave a link here

I guess I never posted this here? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wnp7bIrnCCmusFBJNPiSkWvl9szAGJgyxEiKnKRUxNc/edit?usp=sharing

Tulpa Switching Experiences Study – Conclusions

Tulpa Switching Experiences Study – Conclusions By bduddy Introduction The topic of “switching” is a frequently discussed one in the tulpa community and other plural communities. However, if you observe these discussions for any amount of time, it is obvious that ther...

Feel free to take this down if it's not okay, but some university person has a survey and I thought I'd link it.

4:21 PM

https://community.tulpa.info/topic/15764-survey-tulpamancy-research-study-and-thinking-about-thinking/

[survey] Tulpamancy Research Study and Thinking About Thinking

Do you have 20 minutes to answer questions for our study about unusual experiences and metacognition? We are specifically interested in the experiences of Tulpamancers. [https://www.isurvey.soton.ac.uk/34760

Can't take it since our little sister has psychosis even though we don't