01 / INTRODUCTION

Tulpamancy

Unexpected reply
Cultivated presence
Another mind?

02 / MOTIVATION & CONTENT

Why this subject?

One person, one unified self?

Gods, spirits, deceased loved ones
Psychological mechanisms still unclear

PrayerImagination

Inner dialogueFocused attention

OUR ROUTE / 03–13

Types of self-talk
History I / Tibetan origins
History II / Modern culture
Modern definition
Creation process
Reported experiences
Religion & inner companions
Science
Moral question
Philosophical question
Conclusion

Target: 0:40 · Why this subject & our route

We normally assume that one person has one unified self. But is it something we have proved, or simply how we usually experience ourselves?

What interests me most is that this phenomenon isn't entirely isolated. Throughout history, people have reported communicating with gods, spirits, deceased loved ones, or other seemingly independent creatures.

While the psychological mechanisms remain unclear, we can establish that repeated prayer, imagination, inner dialogue and specifically focused attention may play a role in how these experiences develop.

First, I'll distinguish forms of self-talk and explain why inner dialogue is relevant to tulpamancy. Secondly, I'll trace the term's Tibetan origins and Western reinterpretation, introduce the online communities, and explain what a tulpa means today. After that, I'll cover how people report creating tulpas and experiences such as wonderlands and switching. Next come involuntary companions and religious parallels, followed by what science knows. And finally, we'll consider moral and philosophical points of view on this phenomenon and conclude.

03 / TYPES OF SELF-TALK

Can self-talk become
a conversation?

SILENT

Inner speech

Silent self-talk: rehearse a conversation, reason through a problem, or plan what to do next.

OUT LOUD

Private speech

Self-talk out loud: “Where did I put my keys?” or “Okay, first I need to do this.”

BACK AND FORTH

Dialogic inner speech

An internal back-and-forth between perspectives, as if two people were discussing the same question.

Inner dialogue: a possible starting point, not automatically a tulpa.

[S8] Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015

04 / HISTORY I / TIBETAN ORIGINS

Where did the word
come from?

TIBETAN TERMINOLOGY

sprul pa

Emanation / manifestation

Buddhist context

1929 · POPULARISATION

Alexandra David-Néel

Magic and Mystery in Tibet

HISTORIANS’ INTERPRETATION

Western Theosophy

Western occult ideas of “thought-forms”

Natasha Mikles and Joseph Laycock

Modern meaning ≠ direct continuation of Tibetan practice.

[S1] Mikles & Laycock, 2015 · [S9] David-Néel, Magic and Mystery in Tibet

05 / HISTORY II / Modern culture

From mysticism
to internet subculture.

20TH CENTURY

Paranormal lore

Western popular culture

EARLY 2010s

Psychological framing

Attention · Imagination · Interaction

CONNECTED COMMUNITIES

Guides / Community

Shared interpretations

Individual experience ↔ Social influence

[S1] Mikles & Laycock, 2015 · [S2] Veissière, 2015

06 / MODERN DEFINITION

What the term tulpa means?

Host / tulpamancer ↔ Tulpa

An inner companion with perceived independence

BEGINNINGSOften cultivated; sometimes predates the term
COMMUNICATIONAuditory · Visual · Tactile · Felt presence
PERCEIVED AUTONOMYSpontaneous replies · preferences · disagreement

[S2] Veissière, 2015 · [S3] Mental health survey, 2017

Target: 0:45 · What is a tulpa today?

A tulpa is usually described as a companion or identity experienced as having some degree of independence within a person’s mind. The person who develops or lives with one may be called the host or tulpamancer.

These experiences are often deliberately cultivated and welcomed, though not always consciously created. Some people report having an inner companion long before discovering the term “tulpa”.

The form and vividness of communication can vary: some describe auditory, visual or tactile experiences, while others describe only a felt presence—a feeling that the companion is there.

Practitioners also report spontaneous replies, distinct preferences, disagreement, or the companion making its presence felt without being consciously called.

07 / CREATION PROCESS

How “Forcing” works

01 / IMAGINE

A companion

Name · Appearance · Personality

02 / ATTEND

Sustained attention

Repeated engagement

03 / INTERACT

Inner dialogue

Visualisation · Scripted replies

04 / REPORTED CHANGE

Apparently spontaneous

Responses feel less scripted

Time: variable · Mechanism: unproven · Reversibility: uncertain

No guaranteed outcome / No validated protocol

[S2] Veissière, 2015 · [S6] Reality shifting, 2021

Target: 0:55 · Reported creation process

So how do people describe creating a tulpa? This deliberate practice is often called “forcing”.

[REVEAL] First comes an identity: imagining a companion with a name, an appearance, or a personality.

[REVEAL] Then comes attention: repeatedly bringing that companion to mind and spending time engaging with it.

[REVEAL] Next comes dialogue: talking to the companion internally or visualising interactions. At first, this may feel like writing both sides of a conversation.

[REVEAL] Then, slowly, little by little, some practitioners say the replies begin to feel less scripted, less predictable, and more autonomous—as though the companion is answering for itself.

That is the reported experience, not proof of a separate consciousness, of course. There is no fixed timeline or guaranteed outcome, and no established evidence on how easily it can be reversed.

08 / REPORTED EXPERIENCES

Does it really “work”?

“WORKS” AS AN EXPERIENCE?

A felt presence.
An unexpected reply.

≠What makes it “real”?

“REAL” AS A SEPARATE MIND?

The experience alone
doesn’t settle that.

Wonderland

Vivid imagined shared environment

Switching

Perceived change in agency

Body control

Reported sense of who acts

Identity

Preferences · Memories · Skills

COMMUNITY LANGUAGETerms describe reported experiences; meanings can vary.

[S2] Veissière, 2015 · [S6] Reality shifting, 2021

Target: 1:05 · What practitioners report

Does it really “work”? Before answering, we need to ask what would count as working. If we mean feeling a presence or hearing an unexpected inner reply, practitioners do indeed report such experiences. But if we mean creating a separate conscious mind, that is an entirely different claim.

And what does “real” even mean? An experience can feel real to the person having it without being recognised as real by the outside world. Think of a dream: the experience itself is real, but that does not mean the world within it exists independently. This comparison does not explain tulpamancy, but it helps illustrate why subjective experience and objective reality are two different questions. After all, we cannot directly comprehend reality itself; we can only perceive and interpret it through our senses. Some experiences are more closely grounded in the external, material world, while others are primarily subjective.

[REVEAL]So how do people within the community describe their experiences?

A “wonderland” is an imagined shared environment, sometimes described as highly vivid.

“Switching” refers to a perceived change in who takes the lead.

Reports of body control describe actions that feel as though they are performed by the tulpa.

People also describe differences in identity, including preferences, memories, or skills.

These descriptions can overlap, and their meanings vary across the community.

09 / RELIGION & INNER COMPANIONS

The same thing?

Tulpa “forcing”

Imagine a companion
Return to inner dialogue

Attention
Imagination
Dialogue

A presence feels vivid

Prayer / divine presence

Address a personal presence
Listen for a response

Repeated practice may cultivate a tulpa-like felt presence.

Similar ≠ Identical

[S2] Veissière, 2015 · [S4] Luhrmann et al., 2010 · [S5] Luhrmann & Morgain, 2012

Target: 0:55 · Religious practice & cultivated presence

Could religious practice cultivate something resembling a tulpa experience?

[REVEAL]In tulpa “forcing,” someone repeatedly imagines a companion and addresses them in inner dialogue. Over time, practitioners may describe replies that feel spontaneous, as though ANOTHER person is answering.

[REVEAL]Now consider some forms of prayer. A believer repeatedly addresses God as a personal presence, imagines being with God, and hopes for a response. The intention is a religious relationship, but parts of the practice may look familiar.

[REVEAL]The possible link is attention, imagination, and dialogue. Luhrmann and Morgain’s study of imaginative prayer found that some intense religious practice might shape a sharper imagery and more vivid spiritual experiences than usual prayer.

[REVEAL]So religious practices might cultivate a tulpa-like sense of presence, even without any intention of creating a tulpa. This doesn't necessarily mean the experiences are identical, but they may involve similar underlying neural mechanisms.

10 / SCIENCE

What does science actually know?

01 / DOCUMENTED

Reported experiences

Interviews & surveys
Experiences · Community patterns

02 / POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS

Attention & imagination

Related experiments
Psychology · Inner speech · Absorption

03 / NOT ESTABLISHED

A separate consciousness

These studies do not demonstrate it
A brain-activity pattern would not settle it alone

78% reported a positive mental-health impact (59 responses)

Self-report ≠ causal evidence

Systematic documenting · Long term effects· Brain activity: fMRI & EEG

Psychology · sociology·neuroscience · philosophy of mind

[S2] Veissière, 2015 · [S3] Mental health survey, 2017 · [S4] Luhrmann et al., 2010 · [S5] Luhrmann & Morgain, 2012 · [S6] Reality shifting, 2021

Target: 1:00 · Scientific evidence & open questions

What can research actually establish? There are three different questions.

[REVEAL] First: what do people report? Interviews and surveys document experiences of companionship, apparent autonomy, and changes in wellbeing.

[REVEAL] Take one example: in Isler’s 2017 survey, 78 percent of the 59 respondents to the mental-health question reported an overall positive impact.

[REVEAL] Second: what might explain the experiences? Related psychological research studies inner speech, imagination, attention, and absorption—becoming deeply immersed in an experience. The prayer research we just discussed gives us possible processes to investigate, rather than a complete explanation of tulpamancy.

[REVEAL] Third: does any of this establish a separate consciousness? These studies do not. Studying an experience and proving an independently conscious agent are different tasks.

[REVEAL] For a subject like this, an important step would be systematically documenting personal experiences. Also long term benefits and unwanted effects. Another approach could be measuring brain activity during "forcing" with fMRI(Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging or EEG(Electroencephalography).

This makes tulpamancy an interesting field for research across psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind.

11 / MORAL QUESTION

Not a simple on/off switch.

Companionship & benefits
Unwanted experiences
Survey limits
How common? What caused it?
Mental disorder
destabilization in distressed individuals
Responsibility
Ending a practice · Abandoning someone?

Mental habits

Thoughts

Outer world

Sense of self

Long-term evidence remains limited

IF YOU REGARD A TULPA AS A PERSON…

Is abruptly ending the practice abandoning someone?

A question of responsibility if the tulpa is regarded as a person.

[S2] Veissière, 2015 · [S3] Mental health survey, 2017

Target: 0:45 · Risks, boundaries & consent

And this is not necessarily a harmless game with a guaranteed undo button.

[REVEAL] Internal habits can affect how people experience their thoughts, perceive the outer world, and even the sense themselves. And unfortunately, we lack strong longitudinal research.

[REVEAL] Some practitioners report companionship and mental-health benefits; others discuss unwanted experiences.

[REVEAL] The available surveys cannot establish how common either outcome is, or whether tulpamancy caused it.

[REVEAL] Having an unusual inner experience does not automatically mean someone has a mental disorder. But there are documented cases how such experience can trigger destabilization in already distressed individuals

[REVEAL] There is also a moral question: if someone regards their tulpa as a person with its own wishes, would abruptly stopping efforts to maintain this autonomous agent be considered abandoning someone or simply ending a mental practice? That brings us to philosophy.

12 / PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION

What makes a mind independent?

AGENCY

Who answers?

Unscripted reply
Feels like another source

IDENTITY

Who stays the same?

Personality + preferences
Memories
Stable pattern → identity

CONSCIOUSNESS

What does it feel like?

An inner point of view?
Agency + identity
≠ proof of consciousness
Behaviour → inference

[S2] Veissière, 2015 · [S7] Veissière, 2016

13 / CONCLUSION

Experience and evidence.

Reported companions raise questions about how we experience a self.

REPORTED EXPERIENCES

What people describe

Companionship & apparent autonomy
Distinct preferences & identities
Changes in the sense of agency

OPEN QUESTIONS

What remains uncertain

How these experiences arise
Whether they imply another consciousness
Long-term effects & reversibility

YOUR TURN / A HYPOTHETICAL

If you could create another conscious mind inside your own,
would you do it? Why or why not?

RESEARCHMikles & Laycock · Veissière · Isler · Luhrmann et al.
Full references & evidence limits ↗

MADE WITHHTML · CSS · JavaScript · SVG · Reveal.js · Vite
Icons: Lucide · Technology & credits ↗

Target: 0:40 · Conclusion: experience and evidence

To conclude, we need to distinguish experience from evidence. Reported companions raise questions about how we experience a self.

People describe: companionship and replies that feel autonomous; distinct preferences and identities; and, in reports of switching or body control, a change in who seems to be acting.

These reports give us something to study, but they do not settle these questions: how these experiences arise, whether they might lead to another consciousness, and what happens over time—including whether the experience can easily be reversed.

[Go to sources] The presentation uses standard web technologies with Reveal.js, an open-source presentation engine.

For the research, I drew on Mikles and Laycock for the history, Veissière for practitioner reports, and Luhrmann for prayer and inner experience. The full references are listed here, with notes on what each source can—and cannot—tell us.

[RETURN] So I’ll leave you with a hypothetical question: if you could create another conscious mind inside your own, would you do it? Why or why not?