So, lately I’ve been considering creating a tulpa. What’s a tulpa? Essentially, it’s another living, thinking person in your head, created willingly if not deliberately. If you had an imaginary friend as a child, you probably have a good idea of what I’m talking about. Some kids even unknowingly develop their imaginary friends into tulpas. If you want to know more about tulpas, you can read about them here or here.

I think the idea is pretty awesome. I could have a friend and companion who is always there for me, and who could help me out sometimes (assuming they want to, of course). I’ve got some experience with plurals (people with multiple persons in their heads), and maybe I’ll write about that in a future update.

One typically creates a tulpa by basically talking to them, either engaging in a one-sided conversation or narrating what’s happening in the outside world (these are called “forcing” and “narrating” in the tulpamancy community, respectively). It’s common to take time before this to lay out the details of the tulpa to be created, choosing a name, visual form, and personality traits, quirks, habits and likes/dislikes. I’m not sure if I want to do any of that though. I’ve never been much for planning, and I’ve heard that you can allow the tulpa to develop these characteristics naturally as they form, so I find that sincerity an attractive idea.

I often think to myself in the same way many people talk to themselves aloud, but lately I’ve found myself thinking in second-person or first-person-plural, as if I’m talking to someone else, and I realized that I was unconsciously forcing. I was trying to postpone creation until I had consistently held the desire, since creating a living person is a rather big commitment, but it’s becoming surprisingly hard to wait, so I’ll probably just roll with it. I will update with my progress as things move forward.

Anyway, it’s getting pretty late, and I have work tomorrow morning (not to mention class tomorrow night), so it’s probably time to get some sleep. Goodnight all, and sweet dreams!

class Tulpa : protected Person

{

protected:

Person* host;

std::set<Trait> traits;



public:

void impose(bool isVisible, bool isAudible);

void possess(Limb* partToControl);

void switchOut();

void explore(Wonderland* ourWorld);



Tulpa(Person* creator) : host(creator) traits(initialTraits);

Tulpa(Person* creator, std::set<Trait> initialTraits) : host(creator) traits(initialTraits);

};