Few things are more complex or mysterious than the human mind. And yet, despite its obvious importance, we know relatively little about how it works. In this series of articles, we shall explore some of the latest research, delve into the writings of ancient philosophers, and try to answer some of the most fundamental questions about your consciousness. Try, being the key word here. The mind is without a doubt one of the strangest things in existence, its workings still a mystery to even the brightest of among them.
We can hook you up to scanners that tell us what regions of the brain are active when solving math problems or being creative. We can see the effects of introducing hormones or other chemicals, but the how constantly escapes us. How do chains of molecules keep track of our our memories? How do electrical signals give us the capability of thought? How did billions of years of evolution in a world of survival of the fittest churn out a species that spends its free time collecting stamps?
In this first post, I plan on showing you just how truly strange the mind is by delving into a topic everyone is familiar with but rarely ever receives much thought: today, I will be discussing imaginary friends in all their forms. That may sound like a weird place to start, but I think it is an excellent place to start. Many parents believe that their child's imaginary friend is just a game, which may be true in some cases. But, there is reason to believe that there is much more to this than merely playing pretend.
Many adults have had their imaginary friends persist well into adulthood and still make the claim that they can truly see, hear, and even touch them. In fact, there is an ancient Buddhist meditation practice designed specifically to create an imaginary friend, referred to as a Tulpa. The practice takes months of meditation, but the end result is said to be a being capable of its own thoughts. Some were so convinced their Tulpas were separate consciousnesses that they believed they summoned God and were driven insane by it.
While this may seem like an absurd idea, it is not. The practitioner spends a large amount of time visualizing the tulpa. How they act, how they look, and how they sound. It's not insane to believe that, after enough time, these Buddhists were able to induce hallucinations. While tulpas have fallen out of favor among Buddhists, they have seen a resurgence among internet communities.
Perhaps this phenomenon is nothing but people telling stories, but it's really not as crazy as it may seem. Most people probably hallucinate other people several times a week, if not every night. Don't the people in your dreams seem real to you? Each has their own appearance, their own personality, their own voice. While many of the secrets of the mind are unclear, what is clear is its ability to create self-induced hallucinations. With enough practice, it's easy to believe that someone could create the same effect while they were awake.
So, with so many different occurrences, the question must be asked. What exactly are these tulpas, these imaginary friends, or the characters in your dreams? Is it merely unconscious puppetry, or is it possible that these thought entities actually do have thoughts of their own? Honestly, I do not have the slightest idea. But, we can take a look at one more phenomenon that shows us it is possible for multiple consciousnesses to exist inside the same head.
The phenomenon I am talking about here is actually an illness, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). When multiple personality disorder got renamed, it sparked a myth that it wasn't a real issue, but it absolutely is. What was once known as multiple personality disorder is today seen as an extreme form of DID.
Someone with this particular issue experiences more than one consciousness inside their head. And, like the Buddhas or your children, they will attest to the fact that these are beings distinct from their own consciousness. Unable to get rid of it, unable to control it, it just does what it wishes. They act exactly as one would imagine a conscious entity acting.
With people plagued by multiple personalities, the masses of children who have imaginary friends, the Buddhist manuscripts for how adults create them, and the resurgence of that practice in modern times, I am left with the conclusion that consciousness could very well be divisible. There's possibility that the human brain could hold multiple consciousness, each one truly as real as the the one you know as you.
This article will certainly leave you with more questions than you had before. That will be a common theme throughout the series. Unfortunately, even the best scientists are unable to give you an answer at this time, let alone some armchair philosopher writing a blog. But, while the mysteries are currently unsolveable, they sure are fascinating.
I originally started this series over on steemit, back before the sun fell, causing the great migration. I've grown a lot since that time, in both my writing abilities and my beliefs. As such, I have decided to start the series back up and redo my previous articles. If you would like to see what is to come, you can find my original account at: https://hive.blog/@alex-draw
Just remember that I have grown a lot since that period. I'm kind of disappointed in how little I wrote on such fascinating topics. I really didn't do them justice. If you enjoyed this article, then give me a follow. There will be many more to come in the series that is sure to leave you with more questions than answers.
Very thought provoking post!
Good questions... The last one made me laugh! It is amazing how amazing things are and how complex and then some of the silly things people do just add a whole extra dimension of weirdness to it all!
Whoa... That's fascinating! I want an imaginary friend! I'm going to research Tulpa now.
I think that begs the question of what's real? I've heard some claim the dream world is more real than this physical one and it's beyond my ability to prove either way. In the past I would think that's crazy, but the more I've opened my mind to the possibilities the less I feel like I know these days and if you think you know something 100% that eliminates all other possibilities so I like to try to keep an open mind these days!
I dunno, but I wanna try to find out!
That's deep and wild to think about and I recently finished a book called "Silence the voices" or something like that where they talked significantly about schizophrenia and other mental illnesses where people hear voices like OCD which I suffer from and they claimed that virtually everyone has the schizophrenic type voices even if they aren't clinically diagnosed as schizophrenic.
It gets a lot wilder in that book and they suggest that a lot of our reactions like when we get mad or sad or react in certain ways are not actually our own voices but are caused by some kind of parasite in our bodies that they claim they were able to not only detect but were able to hear the voices coming from those parasites in a similar way that a radio might work transmitting a signal and that they even use "crystals" to send the information, if you know much about radios you might know some of the first radios used crystals and modern computers do as well to send information through the air... Whether the people in that book are accurate or telling the truth or not I can't say for sure, but definitely something interesting to think about!
You first article was fascinating! I'm glad I took the time to read it and I look forward to hopefully reading more in the future! Thank you for sharing and best wishes! :)
Holy freaky hell, I did a quick search and it does seem like that information is accurate. I seen a couple sources mentioning radio waves specifically as well as a litany of other communication methods. What's most interesting to me is that they all talk about fairly advanced levels of communication as well.
I knew that there were parasites and bacteria that influence much of how we behave, but finding out they are capable of such sophisticated communication is amazing. I'll have to delve more into this when it isn't so late.
Glad you enjoyed it! I plan on making this series a long running one. There's so many topics to talk about when it comes to the mind.
How bout the people who can see something? Is it possible just hallucinations? I used to have an imaginary friend as I can remember, but my parents told me that it was only an hallucination. I used to see spirit also, but reading this article makes me wonder what does the real "Tulpa." Means in people's life
Interesting! I've talked to a couple of people who have had imaginary friends and have also said they could see them. Out of curiosity, do you remember actually making the imaginary friend? The process of creating a tulpa is long and deliberate, I'm curious how that compares with children and imaginary friends.
I could see it going a lot easier for them. Children aren't as bogged down by their understanding of reality as adults are. Where an adult might have to mold their mind into truly believing what they are attempting is possible a child would probably have a big leg up there.
That said I imagine there would still be a process, a point at which the friend was just an idea, the point at which it was first seen or heard, when it first did an action that wasn't just puppetry.
The linking to spirits is also interesting, especially if imaginary friends just tend to pop into existence. I'm not convinced that things like that exist, but have heard experiences from others, and some of my own that make me question.
At the very least, I do not think that everything that exists in the universe can be measured and tested, at least not yet.
Appreciate the reblog and upvote by the way! Glad you enjoyed the article, I hope to have many more to come in this series.
I just remember having someone to talk to but my parents always telling me they see nothing. They even tried to get me an albularyo I don't know what's the english of it sorry. And the albularyo said that there's someone always wirh me, I don't believe in them but everytime I remember that it makes me creeps out
Interesting, thank you for sharing your experience. I've never heard from someone who did remember the process which is super interesting to me. It wouldn't surprise me if the process of creating one was easily forgotten, but for so many to have not remembered makes me think it's likely that they did just pop into existence one day. Which is even more strange to me
A very interesting topic which also gave me many hours of thought. Thank you for bringing it up.
I think this is perfectly normal. How else would it be possible to empathise with other people and perspectives? It would not be possible at all. When we follow a play (film, theatre), we are able to recognise each character as peculiar and we, as observers, can understand each of these characters in their feelings and actions. In my view, a person who can put himself in these different roles is a human being precisely because he has an awareness of himself, which at the same time enables him to experience and make himself aware of those of others as well. The division of the self into many selves, which is also considered schizophrenic, is nevertheless primarily not pathological, but normal. At least as long as one does not insist that the people or imaginary figures that exist in one's consciousness must be materially visible to others.
If you have ever written a book or a screenplay, you will notice that the characters develop a kind of life of their own and that as an author you feel a certain amazement that you, as the creator of the characters, write things that they do that you did not necessarily intend precisely. There is a blurring between character and author. I think this is the effect of being able to take on multiple personalities and surprise yourself in a way that is hard to describe, that you didn't anticipate the outcome of a scene.
Since the transition from homo sapiens to man, his awareness of himself is a kind of curse and blessing at the same time. This ability brings the individual into constant conflict with the group, the many others, where he makes (must make) a distinction between group will and self-will.
I'll copy you some paragraphs from a book, I am right now reading, in another comment.
Greetings.
Ooo that's a thought that never occured to me. I do believe you are right though, it makes since to me that the ability to emphasize comes from the ability to live out another life inside of our own. Everyday people just not noticing it because it usually only happens in fractions of a second.
And your right, I've never gotten into novel writing myself, but I have heard famous authors who describe exactly what you are saying here. It would also explain why some actors get so in character that they struggle to get out.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. You gave me a lot to think about as well. And I'll definitely check out your article , and probably that book as well.
Thank you for your appreciative response, I am pleased very much when I can surprise someone else :)
Often, we are not really aware of such things that are so self-evident. The most impressive abilities of us humans belong to us like our skin and are so normal that we hardly notice them. Unless you work with them like all writers, screenwriters or even Gestalt psychologists do. In my training, a very exciting module dealt precisely with this, with the stage that every human being enters in his or her inner being, as you say, in just a fraction of a second, and where every situation in which, for example, a decision has to be made, is played by the various characters of this inner stage. We trainees were asked by our teacher to imagine a certain scene in which a spontaneous decision had to be made and we were asked to write down which different voices and arguments appeared on the stage. I found the results fascinating and have never forgotten it since. The same scene, the same location, the same person has the possibility to vary here at any time.
Because this is so, because the human being is capable of taking countless perspectives, it is sometimes so difficult to be asked to make a fundamental decision about something. I therefore find principles helpful to have an orientation, but they become a shackle if one wants to emphasise or even force a "one for all rule" too much. The schizophrenic mind knows that this is not possible; opposed to this is the part that believes in the idea of the one-dimensional and is therefore prone to error.
Have you read the article?
Source: http://www.grazian-archive.com/quantavolution/QuantaHTML/_start_here.htm
If you are interested, also read my article here and a little interpretation of the authors book, I just gave you the link for:
https://blurt.blog/science/@erh.germany/shut-the-fuck-up-you-cannot-be-silenced
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