I do the same thing too. Heck, we - I AND my tulpas - sometimes make up conversations with imaginary people for fun. (Or, more often, for practice figuring out what to say before actually having a conversation with someone about a thing.)
But thereâs a big difference between the ones we imagine, and the ones who are tulpas.
To explain how, Iâd like you to do a little thought experiment.
Imagine, just for a moment, that you are telepathic.
If you could actually communicate with other people using just your mind, how would you determine the difference between imagining what people are thinking, and actually hearing them think?
Ponder that for a moment.
So, for starters, when imagining, you are in total control. Even when you pretend that you donât. You can cut off the conversation at any time. Change topics. Alter what the imagined person said. Go back rewind and unsay something that you said that felt unsatisfactory. You can change what the imagined person feels or thinks or believes with just a push of your mind.
If you have a good imagination, you can even forget that youâre imagining. You can even imagine that imaginary person pushing back at your attempts to change their mind.
You canât do that with a real person.
You start being able to actually talk to people telepathically - in this little thought experiment here - and youâre not going to be in control of what they think or feel. Try and theyâll fight you on it. You try and rewind the conversation, theyâre not going to just forget and roll with it - theyâre going to remember. Just like you canât always predict what a real person physically says, you wonât be able to predict what they think at you either. Theyâll surprise you. Argue with you from their own perspective. Remember things you donât.
And thatâs what itâs like to have a tulpa in your head.
They donât have a separate physical body, sure. They use the same brain you do.
But with an imagined person, YOU are doing all the thinking for them. Youâre in control.
Tulpas do all their own thinking. They control their own selves. They have a will of their own. You canât force them to say what you want to hear, canât make them feel what you want them to feel. You push them, theyâll push back - whether you want them to or not. (And if you push too much, youâll probably upset them and then have to talk it out and apologize.)
Talking to them feels like talking to a real person, with all the spontaneity and misunderstandings and not always seeing eye to eye stuff and all that jazz.
Talking to an imagined person feels like puppeteering by comparison.
That brings up one last point - when you stop imagining, when you take the sock puppet off, that imagined person stops existing.
Tulpas never stop existing. Sure they can go quiet or leave you alone/give you some privacy or âsleepâ, but they always Exist. Theyâll interrupt you when youâre not thinking about them (once they learn to, anyway.) Theyâll point things out that surprise you because you didnât think they were paying attention then. Youâll want to drop a conversation out of boredom or frustration or whatever, theyâll keep it going because theyâre still interested.
Talking with them isnât like sitting down and mentally envisioning someone. Someone that you conjure into existence with your imagination, and when you turn your attention away they vanish.
Instead, itâs listening and talking to a second mind that, once solidly made, always exists alongside your own. And WILL always, unless you intentionally set out to destroy it.
THATâS what a tulpa is.