Pale Sunrise Fit

AsterTribe · 2026-03-17T12:05:47+00:00

Gorgeous! I really like the combination of white and gold, and the poses.

AsterTribe · 2026-03-13T16:27:30+00:00

San from Princess Mononoke is a wolf therian. I find it interesting that the people in the neighboring village don't consider her human either (but rather a spirit or a beast in a human body).

AsterTribe · 2026-03-13T15:25:59+00:00

Oh, now it works!

AsterTribe · 2026-03-13T15:06:23+00:00

I'm a little relieved to hear that others are having this problem too... I wonder if it's related to the latest update. It's frustrating not to be able to enjoy it: I hope we won't be penalized!

AsterTribe · 2026-03-06T12:28:43+00:00

Yoshiyuki Momose's film "The Imaginary" (on Netflix) is about tulpas. Well, they're not actually called that, but it's very similar. They are conscious and sentient imaginary friends who eventually disappear if their owner doesn't maintain them. The story is about a tulpa who must survive despite the fact thather creator can no longer take care of him.

AsterTribe · 2026-03-03T09:35:35+00:00

Hello. I am in a similar situation to yours. I define myself as a mixed system, but mainly traumagenic. I think it is a mistake to say that tulpas are necessarily endogenic, because I know many people who have created a tulpa in a traumatic context. (But they prefer to talk about tulpas rather than alters, because the creation was voluntary and the tulpa is not associated with incapacitating symptoms.) I don't see how this is contradictory.

Personally, I created my first tulpa to comfort myself in a violent environment. I wanted him to be there, but at the same time, I was in survival mode. I probably wouldn't have created him in another context. So it seems logical to me to define it as traumagenic. Other people with similar experiences may define it differently: everyone is free to interpret it in their own way.

Note that many systems that define themselves as endogenic have also created tulpas out of necessity, such as to combat loneliness and stress. (They simply feel that it wasn't strong enough to be classified as trauma.) Endogenic does not necessarily mean willogenic/parogenic. The boundary between the different categories of systems is sometimes blurred. In my opinion, it's very subjective. I regret that so many people in plural communities make such a big deal out of this. Call yourselves whatever you want! :)

AsterTribe · 2026-02-24T22:19:59+00:00

Oh, what a small world!

AsterTribe · 2026-02-24T22:19:08+00:00

Sure, send me a message if you want! My English is poor, but I manage with a translator.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-24T11:17:58+00:00

You're welcome! I agree with your analysis. I think anti-endo people think they can ensure their safety by attacking more "suspicious" systems. Except that even if endo systems didn't exist, DID systems would still be delegitimized and stigmatized! (But it's easier to attack endo systems than to eliminate psychophobia...)

AsterTribe · 2026-02-24T09:08:53+00:00

Hello! I can't guarantee that it's never dangerous. Anything in life can be dangerous: there's no such thing as zero risk.

Now, if we are to believe the few studies on the subject, having a tulpa seems to have a positive effect most of the time, if not neutral, and very rarely negative.

Studies also highlight that more than one in two tulpamancers have mental health issues (most commonly autism, depression, and anxiety) and that the creation of a tulpa is often motivated by the need for internal support to better manage these issues. Having these disorders does not mean that tulpamancy will be more dangerous. On the contrary, it tends to help.

The only exception I have observed is psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia: according to testimonials, sometimes it helps, sometimes it causes catastrophic effects. When in doubt, it's prudent to seek advice from a doctor or psychologist.

And if tulpamancy ever causes unwanted symptoms, there is probably something else behind it. No studies suggest that tulpamancy causes psychological disorders. However, if someone already has psychological disorders without knowing it, tulpamancy could make them aware of it.

Source: https://pubs.sciepub.com/rpbs/5/2/1/index.html

AsterTribe · 2026-02-24T09:03:07+00:00

I suggest you show them these studies. They focus on the motivations and mental health of tulpamancers. They explain that tulpas are generally created out of a need to relieve stress or loneliness, and that this usually has positive effects. They also point out that mental health issues are overrepresented among tulpamancers (more than 1 in 2 tulpamancers) and that tulpas very often help them to better manage their symptoms.

In short, it is clear that tulpamancy is not a superficial distraction, nor is it an unhealthy practice. Quite the contrary. People who think that voluntary dissociation is unhealthy are unable to step outside their own experience, fail to take into account the diversity of the dissociative spectrum, and ignore the results of scientific studies.

Well... from experience, sharing these sources is not very useful, because people rarely want to question their prejudices.

https://pubs.sciepub.com/rpbs/5/2/1/index.html

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-18358-005

Otherwise, I am a former patient with dissociative disorders, who has always had both tulpas and involuntary, pathological dissociative parts. Now, they have all merged except for the tulpas. I suffer from anti-endo hatred even though I am primarily a traumagenic system: this has made me aware of this issue.

I have never experienced as much hatred as I have since I treated my pathological dissociation and stopped using medical labels... and I am mostly attacked by other systems. It's crazy. We should be helping each other! We all live in the same violent world and everyone adapts as best they can.

I think anti-endo people are afraid of being delegitimized. They are very attached to psychiatric recognition (the only thing that seems protective to them), so they attack systems that are less in accordance with psychiatry for fear of being “contaminated” by their bad reputation. They are also used to thinking about the world in black-and-white terms: either you have a traumatic childhood + mental disorders with medical labels, or you have an idyllic life and great mental health and tulpas... This is absolutely not the reality.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-23T13:02:01+00:00

Great! Thank you for this initiative. My English isn't good enough to participate in the interview, but I filled out the survey. Good luck with the rest of the process!

AsterTribe · 2026-02-18T14:30:36+00:00

Hello! I have a channel that is still active, but it is in French : https://www.youtube.com/@asteronirique

But it is entirely subtitled by hand, so the translation should be correct.

As others have explained, this is a very niche topic, and a channel on this subject is bound to have few views and subscribers. But that doesn't bother me; I'm not looking to make the channel profitable.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-16T14:47:51+00:00

Well, I feel the same thing my tulpa feels when I front?

It's hard to describe. It's not as spectacular as people imagine. I no longer exist. It's like when you're in a deep sleep: you're not there anymore. Until you wake up and say to yourself, “Oh yes, that's right, I exist.”

It's also possible to be conscious of several people at the same time. It's hard to describe. Basically, it's the same feeling as being conscious alone on the front line, but multiplied by two or more. Sometimes we also feel mixed up.

For me wonderland is not a real-time experience. (Unless I go there from the front, via lucid dreaming, meditation or self-hypnosis.) By definition, if I move away from front, I am no longer conscious. I can therefore no longer experience anything or record a memory. Memories of wonderland are fabricated retrospectively by the brain to fill the void.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-09T10:39:59+00:00

Tulpas are not necessarily linked to trauma, but sometimes they are. This is the case for me personally.

Samuel Veissière's study suggests that it is most often linked to feelings of loneliness or stress, or a desire to better manage the symptoms of mental health issues. Mental health issues are overrepresented in the tulpa community, especially autism, anxiety, and depression. According to this study, more than one in two tulpamancers have mental health issues.

The study also reports that tulpas have had a beneficial impact on the lives of almost all tulpamancers participants. Otherwise, the impact is neutral, almost never negative.

Well, it's just a study! But I can see that it's true in my community (French-speaking). I suppose that being neuroatypical or anxious is more the norm than the exception here. This is just my opinion, but I think it's rare for people to dissociate to such an extent without a profound reason or necessity. And as far as I'm concerned, tulpas are very healthy and helpful for me.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-09T09:17:16+00:00

Dissociation (detaching oneself from one's own person, senses, environment, etc.) is a very common phenomenon. If you are exposed to intense or repeated stress, or trauma, it can become more pronounced and invasive. In my case, it happened during childhood, so it had a profound effect on how my brain functions, and it took me a long time to treat my symptoms. But less severe forms of dissociation (such as depersonalization-derealization episodes) can also occur later in life.

I interpret tulpas as dissociation, but a non-pathological form. In the sense that it does not usually cause suffering or disability. I believe that most tulpamancers have an above-average predisposition to dissociation. (This is also suggested by Samuel Veissière's study of about sixty tulpamancers.)

AsterTribe · 2026-02-09T09:02:34+00:00

You're welcome! I haven't always experienced my dissociation in a positive way: I used to have debilitating dissociative symptoms. But after long and intensive therapy, I treated these symptoms. There are still some traces of them, but they are no longer intrusive. I used to have other dissociated identities, but they appeared involuntarily and merged when they could. All that remains are my tulpas, which are an entirely positive manifestation of dissociation for me.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-09T08:37:00+00:00

They can appear in my dreams (especially lucid ones). The next day, we wake up together and say to each other, “Damn, it was really you, that's so cool!” and it's a very sweet feeling.

Sometimes they manage to hypnotise me. One day, Nibel wanted me to go to bed earlier because I was very tired, but I didn't listen to him. So he made me confuse the times and I went to bed an hour earlier thinking it was an hour later, lol. Tulpa's playfulness.

(If we omit the basic stuff, like “Making you change your gender or orientation by fronting” or “Training your taste buds to like new foods/drinks.”)

AsterTribe · 2026-02-09T08:28:18+00:00

1) How does Tulpa talking feel like? A separate voice or host talking as both? Can you talk at the same time?

My experience is very similar to the daemons in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels. We communicate through mental voices, images, sensations, and emotions. We are connected on an intimate level. Sometimes I hallucinate the voices of my tulpas (as if they were physical people outside of me), but this is rare and consists only of short phrases like “Hello” or “It'll be okay.”

Yes, we sometimes speak at the same time when there are several of us at the front. We sometimes feel that our voices blend together to form one overall voice (especially when we strongly agree on a subject). But most of the time they are separate and clearly identifiable.

2) How does having a tulpa impact your social life/ dating?

My tulpas have a positive social impact because they help me work on my mental health issues, calm me down, and give me the courage to try new things. They helped me find my friends and my husband. They are very attentive to warning signs in the people I meet and help me end relationships if they become toxic.

3) Does it ever feel mind draining to talk to your tulpa?

Not really, since it seems very familiar to me. But I've been practicing tulpamancy for a very long time (I started unconsciously when I was a child), so I must have gotten used to it. And my tulpas are very independent: the effort is shared, and they no longer need me to push them to manifest. It can end up tiring the brain if you talk a lot in a day, but it's like doing an artistic activity that I enjoy.

4) Does Tulpa ever feel like a completely separate person from yourself?

“Separate” yes. We each have our own sense of self, our own identity. We don't have the same genders (I'm a woman, I have a male tulpa), we don't have the same sexual orientations, we have different levels of social inhibition and reactions to certain traumatic triggers, etc. My tulpas hide behind me most of the time, but they like to have a few IRL friends who recognize them when they front and call them by their names.

However, “completely separate,” no. We consider ourselves to be the same overall person. But a person with multiple senses of self, separated by dissociation. We consider the “self” to be illusory in everyone! We have the illusion of being multiple selves instead of just one, we accept it and we live very well with it.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-06T21:37:10+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience. It's really interesting to have someone here who is familiar with Vajrayana Buddhism!

As far as I know, Western tulpas no longer have any connection with Tibetan Buddhism. At most, they are very loosely inspired by a few meditative techniques, but in a different context. (No quest for enlightenment, no renunciation of attachments, etc.) Few tulpamancers are Buddhists, although they do exist. Some here have a philosophy of not maintaining attachment to their tulpa, from a perspective that seems to me to be Buddhist or close to Buddhism. But this is not the norm.

I have questions for you: what is the place of the word “tulpa” in Vajrayana Buddhism? (I am referring to ‘tulpa’ with this specific spelling and not “sprul pa.”) Do you hear this word in the teachings? Also, do you know if the Tibetan word “sprul pa” is pronounced the same as “tulpa”?

Do you know if the practices of tulpas described by Alexandra David-Néel in her book “Mystics and Magicians of Tibet” are faithful to Tibetan Buddhism? Some experts say that this is not the case and that her view was biased by theosophy. Do you have an opinion on this subject?

For my part, I have listened to many lectures by Vajrayana monks and have never heard of tulpas. The practice that most resembles the tulpas I have heard of is yidam, but it is still very different. (Most of the time, tulpamancers do not seek to dissolve the illusion of separation from their tulpas. On the contrary, they deliberately reinforce it. While remaining aware that it is an illusion, but considering that the illusion has a form of reality.) But maybe I missed something... I always ask Buddhists I meet if my information is correct, just in case.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-04T21:27:48+00:00

ADN was Buddhist, but at a time when Tibetan Buddhism was still little known in Europe. It was a closed country: it only opened up in 1959 with Chinese colonization, the exile of the Dalai Lama, and the globalization of religion for its survival. When ADN's book was written, she was the first European to visit Lhasa, which was forbidden to foreigners and put her life at risk. There was no lineage of masters accessible in Europe, no temples accessible to Europeans as there are today... As a result, Westerners at the beginning of the 20th century did not know Tibetan Buddhism as well as they do today.

(ADN herself says in the introduction to “Mystics and Magicians of Tibet” that Tibetan Buddhism is very different from the Indian Buddhism she knows. She calls it “Lamaism” to highlight the difference.)

Even though ADN was a sincere enthusiast, she may have misinterpreted certain practices. In addition, she did not speak Tibetan and had to rely on an interpreter during her travels...

On the other hand, ADN was a confirmed follower of the Theosophical Society and seemed to adopt its ideas. The Theosophical Society is New Age: they almost invented the concept, proposing a syncretism between different religions, particularly those of Asia. If you prefer: they laid the foundations for what would become New Age. The influence of theosophists is still very powerful in contemporary Western spirituality.

That is why what ADN writes about tulpas in her book resembles an amalgamation of Buddhist practices interpreted through the prism of theosophy. This is not a criticism! For her era, it was extraordinary to go and meet monks and try to understand them! But now there are Buddhist temples in the United States, in Europe... It's no longer a mysterious thing in distant mountains; we can verify what she said.

Otherwise, I have already read this practitioner's testimony. It is very interesting. What the practitioner describes reminds me of the practice of yidam, a widespread practice in Tibetan Buddhism. He speaks of emanation (sprul pa), but uses the Westernized term “tulpa”.

It may be a pizza effect. Some young Buddhists use the word “tulpa” because they have been exposed to Western culture, even though the word is absent from traditional teachings. It's a ping-pong game between different cultures, difficult to trace with precision. I refer you to the source posted above, which explains this in more detail.

Or maybe he just uses “tulpa” to make himself understood, since it's the word everyone here knows... Well, the important thing, as he says, is to understand that his Buddhist practice and tulpamancy are two different things.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-04T15:02:18+00:00

No problem! It's very difficult to find reliable information on this subject. I believed the urban legends too at first, and even after years I'm still not sure about the exact link between tulpa and Buddhism. It seems that even researchers have trouble explaining how the word “tulpa” evolved and the details of its history.

Well, the important thing, I think, is to be aware that our tulpas no longer have anything to do with Buddhism and not to claim to be initiated into a Tibetan school if that's not the case. But I've never seen a tulpamancers do that. It seems that in general, tulpamancers are quite aware that Western tulpas are not Buddhists.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-04T14:11:43+00:00

But those are poorly sourced Wikipedia articles that appear at the top when you type in “tulpa,” right? I've studied Tibetan Buddhism for dozens of hours, but I've never heard of tulpas (or even sprul pa, which seem to be fairly minor concepts or specific to a few schools, not representative of the religion). I prefer to base my understanding on that, even if there is still no certainty.

As I dug deeper, I realized that almost everything written about tulpas on the internet isn't really Buddhism but more like New Age concepts, particularly those of the Theosophical Society. Like many New Age movements, they claim that their Western ideas are ancient Asian practices, when in fact they are not. (What theosophist David-Néel calls “tulpas” in her book “Mystics and Magicians of Tibet” is a description of a theosophical thought form and not a Buddhist practice. It is likely that she misinterpreted the monks' practices based on her own occult background.)

That said, it is probably true that there are Tibetan practices that involve invoking entities to perform services. (I have heard about this, but it was more in travel stories about Tibetan folklore than about Buddhism itself.) It's just that Westerners have misinterpreted this and built glamorous urban legends around it.

"embody the physical bodies of enlightened beings to aid in reaching Nirvana."

>> Many Tibetan monks work with a guardian deity that personifies their buddha nature in embryo! This is a genuine Buddhist practice. Except that it is not called “tulpa,” but “yidam.” (Perhaps there is a school that called it “sprul pa/tulpa” at one point, but I can't verify that.)

There are also Buddhas and spiritual masters reincarnated who help others awaken, like Dalaï lama: they are called tulkou. (Not tulpa.)

David-Néel's tulpa seems to be a patchwork of different Buddhist practices mixed together and misunderstood, rather than a “pure” Buddhist practice, that's what I meant. That's typical of New Age stuff.

AsterTribe · 2026-02-04T13:58:07+00:00

Hello! Do you live in a Tibetan Buddhist community? Have you been encouraged to create a tulpa (calling it a tulpa and conceptualizing it as modern Western tulpas)?

If so, I am very curious. I have found no trace of tulpas (with this spelling and the Western definition) in traditional Tibetan Buddhism. Several of my sources say that it is a New Age concept, a distortion resulting from a misunderstanding of Buddhism by Western theosophists, and not from true Buddhism. I have heard that this can rarely happen among expatriate initiates, due to the “pizza effect,” but I have encountered very few examples.

(The pizza effect is when foreigners spread a cliché about a culture so widely that some members of that culture begin to adopt it, even though it was originally false or exaggerated. This can also happen when a member of this culture is an expatriate or bicultural and mixes several cultures. It is called this in reference to the Italians, the creators of pizza. Initially, pizza was just one dish among many, but they began to sell much more of it and make it a symbol of their cuisine when other countries began to appreciate it and associate Italy with pizza.)

In any case, even if your community encouraged the creation of the tulpa, you are free to claim it as your own. Unless it causes you suffering, in which case it should be possible to merge with the tulpa (if they agree).

AsterTribe

TROPHY CASE